


Not another Christmas Story

by jolly_love



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Masquerade Ball, Christmas Party, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, Good Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Idiots in Love, M/M, Matchmaker Harry Potter, POV Draco Malfoy, POV Harry Potter, Pansy Parkinson is a Good Friend, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:00:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 34,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27817927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jolly_love/pseuds/jolly_love
Summary: In order to show everyone that the Malfoys are still doing fine, Drac's mother throws another huge Party. Draco decides that he is not going to another party alone, being hit on by all the ladies he’s not interested in anyway and having to tell his mother that yes, there is in fact someone special in his life. His best friend Pansy, who just got married, signs him up for a highly professional match maker service, not telling him that there is one specific person running it: None other than bloody Harry Potter.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley
Comments: 36
Kudos: 149





	1. Jingle Bells

**Author's Note:**

> I had this ready before I took a break from writing, so I decided to give you this story as an advent calendar. I hope you like it :)  
> They're all small chapters so you can read them without having to devote a lot of time (1k to 1.5k words range).

White, gold, silver and black everywhere. Fake magical snow was falling from the ceiling like a beautiful dream inside an even more beautiful dream; the golden conjured butterflies flew around the room, projecting little flashes around the walls and the glowing masterpiece of a cake stood in the center of the room. All around people dancing, the bride and groom happily sitting by the podium and taking in everything happening. The wedding was going great. By now, half of it was over and every possible disaster up until now had been successfully diverted. 

Harry Potter straightened his jacket again and sighed under his breath, leaning against the door frame. He couldn’t wait to get out of these terrible clothes and head to bed. He was happy that the wedding was going so well and that another client of his had successfully found a wife, however, weddings never were his things. No matter how beautiful they were – and this one was one of the most stunning ones he had been invited to. Even though he was technically working here anyway.

His phone vibrated and he quickly slid it out of his pocket, hoping that nothing had gone wrong with the last huge surprise of his client. Luckily, it was just Ginny asking about how he was doing.

> Hey Teapot
> 
> How’s the wedding? Did the bride destroy her dress? Did you have to stop a fist fight between all the groomsmen or did the cake fall and you had to bake another one?  
> By the way, Luna and I are having a brunch on Sunday. Please tell me you can make it and !!!!! I want some of that awesome Christmas Glühwein. Nothing beats yours. Unless you give me the recipe, you have to bring some. Please.
> 
> See you, Ginny

Chuckling, Harry placed his phone back in his pocket, concentrating on the wedding again. It was still his job to check that everything went smoothly and he knew if he wrote Ginny now, he would be distracted until everything was over. He really wanted to widen his range and being able to throw weddings would be benficial for his line of business.

“Harry.” A voice interrupted his thoughts and he turned to look at his business partner. Well, the person who was doing everything behind the scenes. Kevin Entwhistle looked even more uncomfortable in his suit. “We have a problem: The Minister just arrived, there’s no free table.”

Shaking his head, Harry frowned. “Not a problem.” Of course the Minister of Magic would come to this wedding. It was such a high profile wedding, also helped along by his own name that the Minister surely would come by and visit. Even if only for the cake cutting.

Grabbing his small microphone, Harry spoke to his entire staff. “The cake cutting will be moved to before father/daughter dance. Place another chair by the work table, the Minister arrived.” He then turned to Kevin. “Did you greet him already?”

“No” he shook his head vehemently, so that his brown hair flew into his face. “I just saw him walking up the stairs.”

Harry chuckled, while he heard a few staff member confirm his orders and he motioned Kevin to walk off. “Well go and greet him, while I tell the bride and groom about the change of plans.”

Kevin sighed. “I’m sure the Minister doesn’t want to talk to me!”

“You can talk to the happy couple then, if you’d like?” Harry offered and smirked, when he found Kevin glancing into the huge ballroom.

“On second thought” he started and turned back to Harry, “I’ll go and meet the Minister by the front and lead him in.” He walked off, while Harry bit back a smirk.

He walked into the room, following the wall. Nobody was looking at him, then again, there was so much going on in there with the live-band playing beautiful music and people dancing in the magical snow that Harry wasn’t surprised. The butterflies also took all the attention and so, he finally stood behind the bride and groom.

“Vanessa, Henry, do you enjoy your wedding? Anything I can do for you?” he asked and placed a friendly hand on Henry’s shoulder.

Henry laughed and shook his head. Even though he had put quite a lot of hair gel into his hair, his blonde mane was flying wild. “You could enjoy the wedding a little, old friend! At least try the cake, Harry!”

Vanessa chuckled and gave her new husband a good-natured push on the shoulder. “It’s the most beautiful thing I could have dreamed off. I never thought this could have ever happened. Thank you so much! There’s absolutely nothing you have to do for us!”

“Well” Harry smiled. “We have a small change in plan: The Minister just arrived and…” he interrupted himself when Henry scoffed and shook his head. Harry nodded; the Minister of Magic was only here for the publicity, everyone knew it. However, maybe after the cake cutting and the last few pictures, he would leave again. With such a high profile wedding, it was to be expected. “I have decided to move the cake cutting up to after the waltz right now. Everyone’s already informed and the photographer will stay longer to get some pictures without the Minister. No additional charge.”

Henry shook his head. “You’re going to ruin yourself if you keep paying for stuff yourself, Harry.”

“What can I say…” Harry smirked. “I like my clients and couples happy. Are you two happy with this decision?”

Vanessa shrugged her shoulders and smiled. “Sure.” Henry sighed, but nodded as well.

Right then, Kevin brought the Minister in and Harry saw the chairs added to the table on the couple’s left. He excused himself and walked towards the Minister, greeting him and leading him to the table. Even though he tried to talk about all kinds of things, Harry stayed polite but pithy.

While the Minister drew a lot of looks, Harry walked back to the door where he had stood guard and grabbed his microphone. “Release the rose pedals.” That was surely going to take back the attention to how beautifully and now clearly over the top this wedding was.

Harry had made it to the door safely, when the ceiling opened up and thousands upon thousands of different colored rose pedals floated down towards the ground. It made Harry happy to see Vanessa holding her breath and Henry in complete awe, as well as all the attention away from the Minister.

Kevin stood next to him again and shook his head. “I will never be able to understand this craft. Even trying to find a perfect couple is complicated, but this...?! They never said anything about rose pedals falling from the sky! How in Merlin’s name did you figure out that they wanted that?!”

Smirking, Harry shrugged his shoulders. “Magic” he stated and leaned back. Despite the Minister’s unwanted visit, this wedding was going to be a success, he knew it in his heart.


	2. O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

Draco Malfoy sat alone at his kitchen table. Quite depressive really. Well, much like the rest of his small apartment. He had never much liked Christmas time. People having fun, meeting friends, talking about how much they had done last year. He hadn’t done anything. 

Well, he had finished his Healers Studies, but found no practical work. St. Mungo’s wasn’t going to accept him, since everyone was scared of him. And there were not really any hospitals around that needed his help. In fact, whenever he had asked for practical work so he could finally finish his apprenticeship, they just told him that they had already found someone for that position. So, he had given up on that and went into another profession. One, where he could also work with Muggles who didn't know what he had done during the war.

An owl suddenly drew his attention away from his depressive thoughts and he got up, sighing. Opening up the window, he found his mother’s owl. “Great.” The owl probably didn’t understand his sarcastic wording. He still shrugged his shoulders and turned to the drawer to get some owl treats.

Heracles took it quickly and flew out of the window. Which left Draco with an unwell feeling. If his mother didn’t want a reply, this letter – whatever might be written inside – was final. He threw it on the table and opened the fridge to take a coke, but decided a beer would probably help him in digesting the news his mother had sent him.

Armed with what little alcohol his beer had and the hope this letter wasn’t as bad as it was going to be, Draco sat down and stared at it. ‘Draco Malfoy’ was written with the nicest handwriting his mother had… Not really helpful in trying to calm him down.

Draco took a sip of his beer and opened the letter quickly. His hopes were crashed when he saw the official Malfoy crest on top of the small letter. It wasn’t even a personal letter, but a rather formal invitation, which was probably mass produced and only had to be changed for the name on top.

> _Dear Draco,_
> 
> Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy cordially invite you to **The Christmas Masquerade Ball** to celebrate Christmas.  
>  This Formal Affair is a stylish night of dreams and enjoyment. It will be a disruption of the stressful times during Christmas and is supposed to give you a small break of happiness and joy which is what this time of year is supposed to represent.
> 
> Join us on **Saturday, 19th December at 7:30pm at the Malfoy Manor**. Please RSVP to Narcissa Malfoy by 15th December.
> 
> Proper dress is strictly required. Dinner will be served.

Draco raised his eyebrows and sighed. “How about I’m not going?” Looking up, he frowned when he realized that he had already started to talk to himself. Throwing the invitation onto the table again, he grabbed his jacket and walked to the floo, heading to Pansy.

He walked out of the flames to see his best friend on the couch, reading over the same invitation his mother had sent him. When she looked up, there was a hint of a smirk on her face. “I should have known you’d come over. Some tea, Rapunzel?”

Rolling his eyes, Draco slumped into an armchair. “Stop calling me Rapunzel and no, I don’t want some tea. Thanks, though.”

“So, how can I help you then?” she asked, still grinning and sat up properly, placing the invitation on the table. “You know, besides you not knowing what to do with the invitation.”

Draco groaned. “I really don’t know what to do with the invitation! We both know Mother has another date set up for me during these celebrations.” He sighed. “She does have amazing taste, but it’s not mine. Her men are all so… so…”

“Sophisticated?” Pansy offered.

“Conceited.”

Pansy frowned. “Conceited? Draco, come on.” She chuckled a little. “They’re just pureblood standards. Do you want to tell me that Jason is conceited as well? He’s very proud of his pureblood traditions.”

Sighing, Draco held up his hands. “No, I’m not talking about Jason. Your husband’s different.”

“Really, how so?” another voice sounded and Draco turned to see Jason standing at the door frame. He seemed to have stopped working, as he was wearing a casual t-shirt and jogging pants, which Draco never understood how someone could wear these.

Pansy turned and frowned at him. “Grab a pullover, dear; you’re going to get sick like that.”

“Me? Never!” Upon seeing Pansy’s raised eyebrows, Jason grinned and turned around to quite definitely grab a jumper.

Pansy looked back at Draco and smiled. “So, here’s the plan: Just get someone to go with you to the party. If your mother sees that you actually have a boyfriend… problem solved.”

Draco laughed humorlessly. “Yes, because I have so many friends who I can ask for help. And in all these Christmas love stories you continuously made me watch, an idea like that never went awry.” He made a point in raising his eyebrows, like Pansy usually did. His sarcasm was truely showing.

However, Pansy simply shrugged her shoulders and leaned forward to the little table in front of her. It seemed as if she was looking for something. Draco frowned, while Jason walked back in, with a nice white woolen jumper.

He grinned at Draco and sat down next to Pansy. “Babe, what are you looking for?”

“Your brother Michael sent us a pamphlet of this matchmaker company, where did you put it?” Pansy shook her head, while Jason laughed and got up. He walked over to the waste paper and took it.

While he came back to the couch, he held it towards Draco. “I’m not sure why Michael sent it to us, maybe he doesn’t like Pansy. But you can have it. They have a 99% success rate.”

“Yeah right” Draco scoffed and looked at the cover. There were a dozen happy couples in all forms and they all looked so happy. “Wait, does this actually work?”

Pansy nodded. “My friend Vanessa signed up for it, because she was always unlucky and within thirty days they found a match and” she shrugged her shoulders, “they have some ritual where they do whatever, but in the end, they actually got married. Yesterday to be exact.” She hesitated for a second and shrugged her shoulders again, as if there had been more she wanted to say, but didn't.

Frowning, Draco opened the pamphlet. Inside were only three questions next to the company name and address for the owl post.

> _Do you seek this special someone? Have you tried and failed to find your true love? Are you tired of making the same old mistakes?_

“This sounds like a fraud” Draco shook his head, while Pansy chuckled.

“They might just not be good at marketing.”

Jason nodded. “From what I’ve heard, they don’t need to be. They’re up to their ears in work all year long. My friend Marcus told me, he wanted to book an appointment, but he had to wait almost six months for that to happen, so he looked for something else.”

Draco sighed. “Then what makes you think, I’ll get an appointment before Christmas and so I can take that person to the Christmas ball my mother is holding?”

Pansy shrugged her shoulders. “Vanessa might be able to help. Maybe if she tells the matchmaker that she has a desperate friend – which let’s face it, you are – the company might want to help. And I also have a lot of influence, you know.” She smirked, while Jason rolled his eyes, though pressed a kiss on her cheek.

There was no way out. Maybe if he just said yes and proved to Pansy that she wasn’t right, he could finally make her shut up about wanting to give him life lessons. “Okay. Let’s do it. I have nothing to lose here, right?”

His best friend jumped up and walked over to hug him and hurried out of the room. “This is amazing, I’ll get on it right now!” he heard her say while she almost ran through the house.

Jason laughed, turned back to him and took out his phone. “You only did that to silence her, right?”

“It won’t work anyway” Draco shrugged his shoulders. “So there’s nothing to lose here, at least.”

“Yes, I just got that recorded, so if it then does work, I’ll play this at your wedding.” He winked and Draco rolled his eyes, before heading back to his depressing home. This wasn’t going to work, right? That would be weird if someone could somehow match two people together without much thinking and it would be perfect? No way.


	3. Santa Claus is coming to Town

> Hi Teacup,
> 
> I’ll be over on Sunday and I’ll bring whatever you want me to. As you can see in this morning’s paper the wedding was pretty much amazing and I need you to stop hoping something’s going terribly wrong. That’s like me hoping you’ll have an accident while playing Quidditch. Give my love to Luna. See you on Sunday at 11?
> 
> Love, your Teapot

Harry grinned when he opened the door to his office, balancing the coffee on the other hand, and placed his phone back in his pocket. Last day was a lot of work with cleaning up everything and getting a feedback from the bride and groom. He didn’t even have time to write back Ginny, not that she would have been mad at him for that. Today was finally going to be a normal day again.

And normal days started exactly like that: Kevin was already sitting in the office, looking through the mail and Maria, their office helper, sitting at the desk by the door working on a computer.

“Morning Maria, I come bearing coffee.” He grinned as she looked up. “I did not tell the barista to make it as black as my skin, since you would have gotten pure milk without coffee by then. I don’t think that sentence works for me” he chuckled.

Maria laughed and accepted the coffee. “You are terrible, Harry! How was the wedding though, did you enjoy it?”

Sighing, Harry rolled his eyes. “As much as Kevin did, to be honest.”

“Kevin loves it!” Maria answered, winking, and grinned, before making a point of drinking her coffee, while Harry laughed and shook his head.

He walked into the office, placed a coffee in front of Kevin who was on the phone and walked back out to hang his coat on the hall stand. When he was back in his office, Kevin just hung up the phone and turned to Harry with wide eyes.

“You will never guess what just happened!”

“We have a new client?” Harry offered smirking.

“Yes, well… yes” Kevin was visibly confused and pulled his red pullover down. “But that’s not news.” He rolled his eyes while Harry could hear Maria laughing outside. Kevin rolled his eyes. “Vanessa got us a new customer and it’s her girlfriend’s best friend, aka Draco Malfoy.”

Harry widened his eyes and stood there in shock. “No.”

Kevin laughed. “Yes! Do you want to call her back and ask? I mean, I couldn’t believe it when I first heard it myself, but…”

“No” Harry repeated. He was aware that he was cutting off his friend, but he really needed to drive this point home. “I’m not helping Draco Malfoy. He’s made my Hogwarts years a living hell. He is responsible for so much bad shit! I am not going to do this.”

Frowning, Kevin looked back to his phone and then back at Harry. “I already made an appointment. Harry, we have strict rules for appointment, you know this. And we all know I can’t do this alone, I’m terrible at match making. You’re the…”

“I know, I know” Harry rubbed his forehead. “I need to think about this. Kevin, don’t make any more appointment for new customers for now. We have enough going on as it is.” He needed to talk to some people who were there, who could see what he went through. Maybe they could help. “How’s the planning for the Brauner’s wedding going?”

Kevin opened a drawer and took out a folder. “It’s pretty much done.”

Nodding, Harry turned away. “If you need me, I’ll be available on my phone. Just give me an hour or two.” He walked out to see Maria giving him a sad look. She also seemed to know more than he wanted her to know. She was like a mother to him and to see her like this somehow really hurt him. Much more than the thought of having to deal with Malfoy again.

> Ginny, are you home? Can I come over and talk?

A few seconds after he had sent it, he had gotten an answer. He never understood how Ginny was so fast with writing responses, though he hadn’t been happier about this ability.

> Sure, Luna and a few DA friends are here as well, if that’s fine? What’s going on?

Turning on the spot, Harry apparated to his almost wife and landed safely in her garden. Luckily, he hadn’t destroyed anything yet.

“Harry?” the door opened and Ginny walked out, closing it behind her again. She looked almost scared though with all the freckles, she still looked as if life was all fun and games with her. “What’s going on? I haven’t seen you so… out of your mind.” She grabbed her white coat closer around her, as it was actually quite cold and with only a coat and thin trousers and the house shoes, she was probably freezing.

Sighing, Harry shook his head. “It’s just that… I don’t know what to do. And I thought you might be able to help me. It’s nothing bad, I promise.” He smiled and walked towards her, while she nodded and opened the door.

There was a warm scent of cake in the air and Molly’s special Christmas Tea. Luna sat at the table with a few friends from Dubledore’s Army. He greeted them and after a little small talk, Ginny grabbed two slices of cake and they walked into Luna’s office.

“So, what’s going on?” she repeated and gave Harry a slice of cake.

Harry sighed. “Kevin just made an appointment for me to meet… Draco Malfoy.”

Ginny chocked on a piece of cake and placed it on the table, before she coughed and turned back to Harry. With wide eyes, she swallowed the cake and shook her head. “No! No, you can’t do that!”

This reaction made Harry laugh. “You can’t just repeat what I’ve said to Kevin!”

“Oh Merlin” Ginny stared at her cake, clearly not thinking about that piece anymore. “You need to help him!”

Widening his eyes, Harry shook his head. “No. What…” he frowned. “You just changed tones so fast, I’m not able to follow. And also: what makes you think I’m supposed to help him? He made my Hogwarts years some of my worst years of my life.”

Ginny chuckled and shook her head. “Not really, Harry. You always were able to get around him. It was your aunt and uncle and then Voldemort who made your early life a living hell, not a small school bully.”

Harry leaned back and frowned. That was actually true. So, maybe he should indeed help him? Groaning, Harry closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “I hate it when you’re right.”

“Right about…?” Ginny asked smirking

“Everything, Gin, everything.” He sighed. Yes, he needed to help Malfoy. Something really made him want to know what was going on with him right now. Especially since he signed up for his matchmaker program. And who knew, maybe they could even end up as friends?


	4. Der Heiland ist geboren [The Savior is born]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you may know this, but I currently speak three languages (trying to learn a fourth). And I love Christmas Songs in all languages. I tried to find this one in English, but it doesn’t seem to exist (you need to listen to this beautiful German Christmas Song if you've got the time <3). The translation would be “the savior is born”.

Draco entered the small Italian restaurant in the middle of Muggle London. It seemed to be a secret, since Draco would have never found it, if it weren’t for the notes the matchmaker had sent him. However, there were so many people inside, even though it wasn’t lunch time yet, that the secret must have not been that well hidden.

A nice lady walked towards him with a friendly smile and Draco returned it. “Hi, I’m supposed to meet Milos King. The reservation is for King.”

“Of course!” Her smiled widened and she motioned him to follow her. They walked around the corner, where a few booths were set up as if they were for private meetings. “Milos is almost never on time. Anything I can get you?”

Draco sat down and frowned. “So, you know him?”

The young woman nodded and practically beamed at him. “He helped me find my husband. We’re happily married for almost five years and I can’t think of another way to find someone. In return, we decided to offer him a place to meet potential customers.”

“It works, then?” Draco couldn’t really get over this, while the girl laughed.

“Yes, it does. You just have to be open and honest while they’re trying to find you a partner, then nothing can stop you.” She smiled. “I’ll bring you a coke. It’s on the house.”

While she walked away, Draco shook his head and checked his watch. He had been pretty punctual: it was ten o’clock right now. They were supposed to meet at ten o’clock. This was going to be a disaster, right? If this person couldn’t even be bothered to check the time… how were they good and finding a human being?

Draco rubbed his forehead and stared outside. It just started raining and some lonely tourist couple was frantically looking for their umbrella, while two locals just kept walking. By the time the couple had found their umbrella, the rain would stop again. Almost certainly.

The young woman placed the coke in front of him and smiled. She was just about to say something, when a man entered the restaurant. Draco watched interested, while she went over and hugged him. And then she kissed him on the lips. That was probably not Milos King, unless he was having an affair with a married woman… Which could be true, but would look really bad for his business, especially if he was doing it with a potential customer in sight. Maybe it was just her husband – which seemed more likely.

While it was interesting to watch what was happening outside the window, Draco was soon bored out of his mind and checked his watch. Ten minutes had gone by and he growled and decided to give Milos King another five minutes, then he would head home and tell Pansy how stupid this whole idea had been.

Just then, he saw the one person he had never thought he would see again right outside. Harry freaking Potter. He hurried through the rain and waved to someone and just as suddenly as he had appeared, he was gone again.

“I think I’m imagining things” Draco murmured and shook his head. He turned to look for his jacket and felt another presence. Thinking it was the young woman, he sighed. “Hey, thanks for the…” When he turned around he saw Potter standing in front of him. He looked so much like a man! Especially his well-fitting winter jacket und jeans were making Draco speechless. However, Potter still couldn’t be bothered to tame this wild hair of his, though it did look rather amazing with the elegant clothing he was wearing and the rather expensive looking wrist watch visibly in place.

“I am so sorry for the delay” Potter apologized and sat down. “We had a small issue with another client, however, now I am here.”

Draco held up his hands. “Wait, you’re Milos King? What? I…” His words had left him as he looked at the coke still standing on the table, almost untouched.

Potter chuckled. “Yes. I had to come up with another name, since I realized rather quickly that people just wanted to meet me, not really find a partner. So it’s Milos King.”

Wow, he had always assumed that Potter was arrogant, but not like that. Naming himself ‘King’? There were a thousand better names he could have come up with.

“This is clearly a mistake” Draco shook his head and grabbed his jacket.

Potter shrugged his shoulders. “Do as you must. However, since we’ve started talking and since we’re already fifteen minutes into our first meeting, I’ll have to bill you for that. You can as well just stay now.”

Draco glared at him. “You came late! And we haven’t even started talking about your business, yet.” Potter only seemed amused over his anger, which made Draco narrow his eyes. “How much does a meeting cost anyway?”

“Depends on what is being discussed. The first meeting costs two hundred pounds” Potter shrugged his shoulders.

“For an hour?!” Draco threw his hands into the air and sat down again. “You are ripping people off, Potter. Nobody can be that good.”

Potter shrugged his shoulders and grinned. “We’ve got a ninety-nine percent success rate.”

“Yes, I’ve read your pamphlet.” Draco rolled his eyes.

The young lady walked over and brought a small platter of food, almost making heart eyes at Potter, who didn’t seem to notice it. Draco was wondering whether or not Potter could be having an affair with all his clients. That would seem like something this savior would do. There was clearly no man in this country who would mind the oh so holy Potter having fun with their wives.

“Are you even listening?” Potter asked and smirked amused, when Draco glared at him.

“Yes.”

“Then what have I been telling you about my company?”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Boring shit.”

Potter sighed. “Why did you even ask for a meeting, Malfoy? If you don’t want to be here, just tell me and I’ll leave you alone again. We don’t ever have to see each other again. Is it that you’d prefer?”

For some reason, Draco didn’t like this option much. He sighed and shook his head. “I was hoping you… this matchmaker could help me find a boyfriend for my mother’s Christmas Masquerade. She keeps insisting that she has better taste in men, but they’re just not my type.”

“Too pureblooded?” Potter asked and chuckled, when Draco frowned at him. “Oh trust me, your mother tries the same with me.”

“What?” Draco widened his eyes. His mother was in contact with Potter? Why had she never told him that?

Potter shrugged his shoulders. “Whenever I go and visit her, there’s miraculously always some pureblood man around and then she keeps leaving the room and I have to talk to that idiot.”

Draco shook his head. “When do you visit my mother? And why?”

“We bonded after the war. Nevermind that, am I right? You’re not interested in trying to find someone too pureblooded?”

Sighing, Draco grabbed his coke and sipped at it. “I don’t think I’d mind. I just can’t stand then if they’re too arrogant.”

Potter nodded and smirked. “I can work with that.” He pulled a planner out of his pockets. “So, here’s how we’re doing things. I’ll need a week to find some suitable partner and then we’ll meet again, I present you the top three and you make your choice. Usually, I like to take up to a full month to find someone, but seeing that the Masquerade Ball is in barely two weeks, we might have to speed things up.”

“How do you know when the ball is?” Draco wondered and found the answer then quickly by himself. “Mother invited you, didn’t she?”

“She did” Potter chuckled. He looked up and grinned. “I’ll send you an owl with the address of my company, when I’ve found my top three picks for you.” He slid a small parchment over the table. “I just need you to fill in the questions here and then I’ll leave you in peace again.”

Draco sighed, but did what he needed to do in order to make Potter disappear again. However… he had actually liked to spend a little time with his old school nemesis.


	5. Baby, it's cold outside

Whistling a Christmas tune on the radio, Harry walked around in his office, checking the different folders where he had a few hundred pictures of people who had just given him their profile. Saturday was always his favourite time to work uninterrupted. Maria had always a free day and Kevin only came in when they had both far too much to do. Harry had told him to stay home and enjoy the winter. There were only three cases open and while Harry was in fact looking for a possible match for Malfoy, he also liked to look for someone for the others.

When the bells to the office door sounded, he frowned, turned down the radio and walked out into the hallway to find an old friend standing there. “No way! Hermione Weasley-Granger! What are you doing in this neck of the woods?!” He laughed and went out to hug his best friend.

“Harry!” Hermione grinned and returned the hug. “You look well, do you eat enough?”

Chuckling, Harry motioned her to the small kitchen at the end of the hallway. “You don’t need to ask me that, ‘Mione. Maria is a phenomenal cook and whenever she catches me not really eating, I’m ordered to come by her house and eat. In a way, she’s worse than Molly.”

Hermione smirked. “I don’t think that’s true.” She accepted the tea Harry placed on the kitchen table and smiled at him. “Are you interested in coming over on Christmas? Or do you want to – again – spend it with this secret boyfriend of yours?”

Harry chuckled into his tea and shrugged his shoulders. “You’ll never know.”

“Harry, you know that Ron thinks you’ve just invented a boyfriend so you don’t have to come over on Christmas for the past two years.” Hermione sighed. “And if that’s the case, at least tell me why. You know I’d never judge you.”

Luckily, his phone vibrating saved Harry from answering and he looked down to find one of his customers, Peter, calling. Excusing himself to Hermione, he accepted the call.

“Peter? What’s going on?” He really hoped that this man hadn’t once again messed up everything. For some weird reason, he had a tendency for always doing the one thing that was uncalled for in almost every situation.

There was rustling on the other end, when Peter finally started to talk. “I think I messed up.” Great. 

Harry rolled his eyes. “What did you do?”

“You gave me another woman who was too modern. How could I know that insisting on paying for the first date isn’t what you’re supposed to do nowadays?!”

Suppressing another sigh, Harry forced himself to smile. “Peter, I told you to grow with the times. Listen, how about you come over on Monday and we’ll look at everything together. Maybe Maria can help with some information.”

After a short silence, Peter sighed, defeated. “Yeah. Sure.” Before Harry could say something, his costumer continued talking: “You know, I keep thinking that I am the problem and that…”

“No. Peter, we’ve been over this: You don’t have to change your personality, but times have changed slightly.” Now at least Harry wasn’t forcing a smile, as he chuckled softly. “I _will_ find that special someone for you. Don’t worry. However, I am sorry for putting you through all of this. Give me a little more time.”

Hanging up, Harry turned back to Hermione and smiled. “I’m sorry, where were we?”

Hermione seemed only slightly surprised by what she had witnessed and quickly turned her attention back to what they had been talking about before Peter had interrupted them. “Ron thinks you’ve invented a relationship?”

“Oh, yes. And no, I haven’t invented a relationship, I’m not that creative.” Harry chuckled and motioned to the flyers on the table. “Which you’ve told me countless times with my marketing.” He needed her attention on something else. With all the questions Hermione and Ron were asking him about his clearly fabricated boyfriend, he really needed to find a way out of this small lie. This stupid one liner he had once said to get Molly off his back had taken on a whole new life of its own.

Hermione looked at the fliers and shook her head. “To be honest, your marketing is the worst thing I’ve ever seen, though somehow it seems to work.”

Harry shrugged his shoulders and grinned. “Anyway, Hermione I would love to come over for Christmas. But I do work until literally the night of the twenty-fourth, so I hope it’s fine if I come by in the afternoon of the twenty-fifth?” That was a small lie as well. However, Hermione didn’t need to know that he wasn’t really working. She wouldn’t find him at home or in his office then, anyway.

“I don’t like you working such long hours, Harry! It’s not healthy.” She had once again this disapproving look on her face. This look wasn’t strange to him, as he had actually been on the receiving end of it for the last couple of years. Maybe that was also a reason he had invented this man who, just so Hermione thought there was someone else around who was keeping an eye on him. “And who is asking for dating advice on Christmas, anyways?” 

Harry sighed and shook his head. “Too many people, Hermione. Are you and Ron at home or do you want me to come to Molly’s instead?”

“Not sure yet” Hermione shrugged her shoulders and smiled. “But I’ll tell you once it’s decided. I’m just happy you’re coming.” She waved and was gone in almost five seconds tops. Shrugging his shoulders, Harry placed the tea back and went back to checking the profiles in their data base. 

He hadn’t been alone for even two hours, when the door to the office opened again. This time however, Harry hadn’t really heard it. He was still studying a profile which could match one of the other customers and whistling to the new Christmas song on the radio.

Jerking up with the sudden noice, Harry looked at the door. “You look really busy!” There at the doorframe stood a red haired middle aged man in some casual clothes, though they stretched quite nicely over his muscular body.

“Jason!” Harry laughed and walked out of his office to greet his former customer. “How are you doing, mate?”

“Great, thank you Harry!” Jason laughed and hugged him. “You’ve been busy, haven’t you?”

Harry shrugged his shoulders. “Always have been and always will be. Comes with the title, I assume.”

“Title?” 

“Of being the chosen one.” Harry smirked, while Jason rolled his eyes and laughed.

“Not even slightly modest, I see.”

“Well, you know me” Harry smirked and motioned him to walk into the kitchen where he provided his second guest on this day with a cup of tea. “So, what have you been up to?”

“Nothing really. I’m still working tirelessly to get some kind of approval in the Ministry.” Jason sighed, but accepted the cup of tea.

Nodding, Harry remembered his own time in the Ministry. He had always thought it was weird how he had gotten such a high position of power, when Jason had been there so many more years. “Well, doesn’t surprise me. These goons have never really seen the little guys.” Harry smiled weakly. “How’s your lovely wife?”

“This is the reason I came by actually…” Before his old friend could continue, Harry held up his hands and looked remorseful.

“Oh, I am so sorry, we’re not doing divorce procedures here, but…” Harry smirked, while Jason shook his head.

He placed his cup on the table and leaned forward. “I will destroy your business Harry!” he smirked. “My lovely wife is very well, thank you. We couldn’t be happier.” He rolled his eyes and relaxed a little more, all while Harry had a really hard time biting down his laughter. “Actually, we could: We’re holding an early Christmas Banquet in our home and we’d like to invite you. If I can’t convince you to come, I might end up having a lot of problems at home!”

Harry raised his eyebrows and chuckled. “Is that some kind of new invitation strategy? You want me to spare you the wrath of an angry wife?”

“Yes, something about reverse psychology and all that. Is it working?” Jason grinned, while Harry shrugged his shoulders.

He leaned back and took a sip of his tea. “Hmm, almost. Is it private or do you have the media there?”

“Media? It’s Pansy, Harry! She’d hex them into the Antarctica just to have a day without being hunted down by them.” 

Harry chuckled. “You’re right. When is it?”

Jason grinned at him and took out a small invitation. “Sunday, the thirteenth. Any plans for then?”

“Actually, yes.” Harry grinned and waited for his friend to get the stupidity if his joke.

“Really?” Jason widened his eyes, before he smirked. “The Christmas Banquet of a certain Pansy Chevalier?”

Harry laughed and nodded. “Absolutely, I’ll be there.”

Jason cheered and after a few more minutes, he turned around and walked out as well. Harry spent a few more hours in his office, but decided to head home as well.

In the night, however, Harry woke up with a jolt. Staring at the ceiling he pondered over why he had told Malfoy that the first meeting would cost him something… They never did that! Why had he suddenly wanted to keep him from walking away?! This was bad. He was… he was destroying his whole reputation for this, wasn’t he?!


	6. Santa tell me

Wet snow clung to his shoes as he apparated right outside of the gate to Malfoy Manor. Draco stood still for a second and stared at his childhood home. It looked so… out of place. Forlorn almost. The iron gates were locked firmly into place and the ancient magical family wards lay dormant like a huge dog after a meal, just waiting for someone to invade them. Then again, last time someone else took over, the wards did nothing.

After the Dark Lord’s demise, he could never really bring himself to see this house as a family home. And even having to think about living there once his parents had left… it made him want to throw up. Inhaling deeply, Draco closed his eyes and pushed the gate open. He walked over the snowy, gravel path to the front door which was being opened not even two seconds after he had opened the gate.

His mother appeared at the white double doors and smiled at him. “Dragon! How nice of you to come by!” There was an unspoken reproach of him coming by without having announced himself.

“Hello Mother” Draco ignored the look his mother gave him and smiled. “I just had to come by for a little bit of information that I didn’t trust the owl post to deliver without any problem.”

His mother still looked a little disapproving, though she quickly smiled. Even though it looked a little fake, Draco had nothing against it. “Of course! I have just wanted to get some tea. Would you like to join me?”

“I would like that, yes.”

They walked through the hallway with all the old portraits in the wall. All judging him, hard eyes on him and clearly unhappy with his live choices. Draco would have loved to poke out his tongue, though with his mother only a few feet in front of him, he didn’t think he could have denied it, should the portraits talk. So… he just ignored them as much as possible.

When his mother turned towards another small room, Draco froze. This was where the Dark Lord had tortured him for hours upon hours. How could she just go in there and expect him to follow her?! Stuck in the dilemma of having to face his mother with the information of torturing him as well or just breaking her heart, Draco groaned and decided that maybe she had just forgotten what had happened in there.

He stepped inside and found the elves setting the table. He kept his eyes on the table, not looking at anything that could give him another few months of nightmares. His mother was already sitting at the small table and smiled at him. “Now, what was it you wanted to ask me? That couldn’t be trusted by the owl post?”

“I accidentally met Harry Potter and he said you’ve invited him to the Christmas Masquerade Ball as well? I didn’t know you had such a strong relationship.” Draco decided to do this as fast as possible, so he could leave this nightmarish room quickly.

His mother shrugged her shoulders. “Oh Dragon, I’ve always wanted to open up the Malfoy Manor to the public again. When Harry was here last time, we brainstormed about the best way to do so. And we found that a fun evening was certainly the way to show everyone that we’re doing fine.”

Were they doing fine? Draco frowned, but decided not to say anything. “But…”

“No buts, Draco. It’s time to move on and prove that we’re not these bad guys the people think we are. You should move on as well. Being stuck in a meaningless job all day long and doing nothing with your life is not how I envisioned your future.”

“I’m not doing something meaningless. I’m helping...” His mother interrupted him, before he could say something. That wasn’t surprising. Both his parents thought that his job was stupid and he could earn so much more money if he had gone into politics. However, he had seen how it had ended for his father and decided not to do anything that would land him in the eyes of the public.

“Whatever the case may be, Draco, I am not happy with how you’re wasting your life, which is why I think it would do you well to find a man who knows where he’s going.”

“Yes.” Draco sighed. “Thank you, mother.” That was not how he felt, but he knew if he would try to ignore the warning signs, he would end up being chased out of the house. At least right now, he knew a little bit more. “So, why does Potter come here out of nowhere? How long has this been going on?”

Draco’s mother chuckled, as if Draco had asked the funniest question. “Oh, he comes by approximately three times in two months. And we’ve had these lovely meetings for the past five years, I believe.”

“But… why? He’s not like your pureblood friends and how did that even start?” Draco shook his head, as if he just couldn’t understand – which yes, he really couldn’t understand.

“We don’t need to surround ourselves with the people with the same ideology. That’s how bad things get started” his mother looked in her tea, as if she was remembering something, probably from the Dark Lord. “Anyhoo, we met in one of the side alleys of Diagon Alley and I invited him for tea.”

“That’s all?” Draco sighed. For some reason he had hoped that there was some huge thing going on, but apparently it was just two people walking into each other and a new friendship was born.

Draco’s mother nodded. “Yes. I believe that was all.”

Well, this discussion didn’t lead anywhere. Draco stayed for about half an hour purely out of politeness and bid goodbye then. Walking into the front hall, he stopped dead in his tracks, when he found the person he really hadn’t wanted to see today.

“Father.”

“Draco. What are you doing here? Don’t you have a life outside of here?”

“I do. Thank you for asking. I’m doing fine by the way. I hope you too.” Draco narrowed his eyes slightly. His father shrugged his shoulders and walked out of the room.

While he walked into the ball room, Draco heard him say under his breath: “Come back when you’ve found a proper wife, before that you’re not welcome.”

Shaking his head, Draco walked out of the home. “Well, fuck you too, then” he swore when he was out of earshot, just in case. Why couldn’t he have parents who were normal?! Or at least… dead? Well, no; that was probably a little bit too far.


	7. God rest ye merry Gentlemen

Where had he put his planner? Harry once again checked all the drawers, but there was nothing in there, and he was already late – if he remembered correctly. He sighed and turned to the door. Grabbing the thick folder, Harry hurried through the hallway and passed Maria.

She looked up from her desk and shook her head, though there was a small smirk on her face. “I’ll call Anita and let her know that you’re late again. You really have to get a watch, Harry! Your clients can’t wait forever and…”

“I know, I know, Maria!” Harry rolled his eyes and grinned. “You can tell me all about that when I’m back. I’ll see you soon. Tell Kevin to give the profile on his desk to Thomas. I think it’s a perfect fit. See you soon!”

Maria laughed as Harry closed the door. He looked around the hallway and decided to just apparate to an alley close to Anita’s Italian restaurant. Turning around, he quickly felt the familiar push and was soon outside in the freezing cold.

He quickly walked through the wet streets and opened the door. Anita saw him and smirked. “You are terrible, Harry! At least I know you’re never actually on time.”

“Oh, but there are times I’ll have to be on time.”

“For your clients for example?” Anita raised her eyebrows and motioned to the back of the restaurant.

Harry chuckled and nodded. “You got me there.” He hurried back and found a rather happy couple sitting in his usual booth. “Jennifer, Mason! I haven’t seen you in a while, how are you doing?”

The platinum blonde woman looked up and practically beamed at him. She jumped up and pulled Harry into a hug. “Awesome, Harry! I can’t believe I ever thought you were a scam.”

“Oh thank you very much” Harry answered sarcastically and chuckled, while Mason got up and pulled him in a strong hug as well. He looked as happy as Jennifer, even though he had never really liked to show his true feelings – much like the pureblood he was.

“So” Harry sat down opposite of them and opened the folder. “This is our last meeting and I just wanted to find out if there’s something we’d need to discuss. Good, bad, whatever you’d like.”

Mason nodded and pushed his short black hair out of his eyes. “I just want to tell you that you’re the best company there is. And… I cannot thank you enough for having found Jenny!”

Jennifer smiled at him in a real love struck kind of way, before she turned to him. “Actually, I was wondering whether or not you’d do a wedding as well. I know you did one for Vanessa and she said it was perfect, so maybe…”

“Well” Harry shrugged his shoulders and smiled weakly. He hadn’t really had time to plan many weddings, but it was fun to do two or three during the year. He was more comfortable just playing in the background and not having to deal with all the stress that happened during a wedding. “When did you want to get married?”

“It’s a Christmas wedding!” Jennifer’s eyes started glowing brightly and even Mason seemed to glow like a light bulb.

Harry widened his eyes and smirked over how incredibly happy they seemed to be. “So in… seventeen days? Or do you mean next year?”

Mason laughed and shook his head. “No, this year would be absolutely perfect!”

These two were moving extremely fast. Harry wasn’t really sure that this was the best idea ever; however, maybe it was okay for them. “Sadly, I don’t think I can fit it in my calendar. I would be honored to attend your wedding, though the planning doesn’t really work.”

“That’s alright” Jennifer smiled. “Do you know someone who can plan a wedding in seventeen days?” She looked at Mason as if to silently ask for his approval and he nodded and smiled back.

“Absolutely” Harry grabbed a small business card and placed it in front of them. “She’s a close friend of mine and would be happy to hear from you.”

Mason looked at it and turned to Harry. “You are the best, Harry. Thank you so much for all you’ve done so far. It has been an incredible ride with your company.” All along, Jennifer was nodding vehemently and Harry chuckled.

“Is there nothing else, I can do for you? Nothing I could improve?”

“It’s perfect the way it is, Harry” Jennifer beamed and not that long after, the lovebirds were gone again. 

Harry leaned back and ordered a coke, just when he got another text.

> Hey Teapot!
> 
> You left your weekly planner at our home! You were supposed to have a ‘FLANNE MEETNG’ with someone called JenMa? How is anyone able to read your handwriting?! I put a spell on it so no one can read it but the original owner and gave it to Ron. He’s going to the Leaky. Go meet my big brother, you giant old softy.  
>  It was nice having you over, but next time, don’t forget half of your things! We’re having another celebration, but I’m not sure when. I’ll keep you updated, honey.
> 
> Love, your teacup

Harry exhaled and relaxed slightly. At least now he knew where his planner was.

> Dear Teacup
> 
> Thank you for finding my planner. And that thing today was a _final meeting_ with my clients. Thanks for telling me on time. On the 13th, I’m going to Pansy’s and Narcissa has a Christmas celebration on the 19th. So, if you want me to come to something else you’re planning, you might have to give me a little heads-up as soon as possible.
> 
> I love you too, little teacup. From the teapot

Before he headed to the Leaky, Harry walked back to his office to place the folder in his archive and celebrate that they had once again gotten two people together. Once again, he decided to apparate and almost fell onto Kevin, who had just entered his office.

“Oh, sorry, Kevin. Hey, did you see my profile?”

Kevin smirked. “I did, yes. I cannot believe I haven’t seen it before! Of course Thomas and Melani would work together just fine!” he shook his head. “However, can I ask you something else?”

“Sure.”

“Why aren’t you around our new client, Harry?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “I’d rather not.”

Kevin nodded. “Yes, I know that, I’ve seen what he did to you.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Nonetheless, I believe it was you saying once that people grow and change. So, let me repeat my question: Why aren’t you around our new _client_?” He raised his eyebrows almost as if he was judging him.

Sighing, Harry shook his head and walked to the kitchen to make some tea. If he thought that he could escape his co-owner, he should have known better. “Kevin, I really hate you right now.”

His friend stopped at the doorframe and leaned on it, shrugging his shoulders again. “Still not an answer. Do you want me to ask you again?”

“No!” Harry sighed. “Fine. I’m not around him, because… I don’t know what to do with myself around him.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kevin frowned and shook his head.

Harry grabbed the sweet apple tea and poured the boiling water over it. “It’s too personal. With any other client, I can just be myself, but with him, I… I don’t know. I don’t think I could stay neutral. I don’t want to judge him based on what I think of him.”

“You do realize that it’s exactly what you’re doing right now, don’t you?” Kevin crossed his arms over his chest and frowned. “You cannot tell me that you can give him your top three candidates that lead him to happiness if you haven’t spent more than thirty minutes with him. Your rule is to spend at minimum two days with our clients.” Kevin raised his eyebrows.

Harry sighed. “I know! But I don’t want to.”

Laughing, his friend shook his head. “This is going to end in a disaster. Just for fuck’s sake, tell him what our rules are so we can give him a perfect fit and he can be happy!”

“But it’s not even that important!” Harry wondered why he was so vehemently against visiting his old school nemesis. Maybe he really had changed. Why didn’t he want to believe that Malfoy was different? “He told me it’s just for Narcissa’s Christmas Masquerade Ball. After that, he was going back to his normal life. Why should I…”

“Potter!” Kevin threw his hands into the air. “I remember someone doing his normal job anyway with Kurt and how he found the love of his life through us, though he only wanted to have one meaningful date in his life. Are you going to tell me you’re chickening out, just because it’s Malfoy?” Kevin scoffed, though clearly trying to convince him to spend some time with his former nemesis. “I never would have thought.”

Harry groaned. “Fine! I’ll do it.” He sighed. “I’ll call him tomorrow. It’s a little late today and I have quite a few things on my plate right now.” For one, he also needed to get his planner back from Ron and meet him in the Leaky.

As if his friend had read his mind, he smirked. “Yeah, yeah. Liquid courage is also a good idea, mate.” 

“I’m leaving!” Harry rolled his eyes and grabbed half of the tea to go. “Enjoy my apple tea, you big bully.”

“Oh, I will.” Kevin laughed, while Harry walked down the hallway and waved Maria that he was out of the office again.


	8. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

“Okay, this is it!” Draco plunked the book he had in his hands on the table. Staring around the room, he sighed and walked over to the window, opening it for some fresh air. “It’s time I clean up. I have to get my life back under control.”

Walking over to the bookshelf, he cleaned those up first and took out everything that wasn’t books. He cleaned his kitchen table from all the waste and spelt his couch and the carpet clean. Placing all the dirty plates and everything else in the dishwasher, he felt music would help even more and quickly put on some classical Muggle Christmas songs.

If his father would see him right now, he would probably kill him. First of all, house elves were supposed to clean, secondly, magic should be used for all housework and how dare he listen to Muggle songs. Additionally, he was living in a Muggle home, only Muggle neighbors… his father would absolutely tell him that he must have lost his mind.

Draco hummed along to the Christmas song and quickly cleaned his bathroom along with the floor in every room. He made his bed and opened the bedroom window to get some light in there. Actually, in this light, his small apartment looked almost cozy.

Walking out of his bedroom, he almost smiled for the first time in this apartment. It had taken quite a lot of time apparently.

All of a sudden, the doorbell rang and Draco frowned. None of his friends knew where he lived. He walked over to the door and opened it to find… a tall dark blonde man in a suit and a few dozen red roses. Oh Merlin, no.

“Evan? What are you doing here?” And of course his smile was gone again. Whenever this man showed up in front of his doorstep, something was about to go down – never anything positive.

The tall man smiled at him and held the roses towards him. “These are for you. It’s our anniversary!”

Draco groaned. “It’s not.” Before he would make a scene and let all the neighbors know that he was in a failed relationship, he stepped aside and motioned Evan to walk in. “But apparently we need to talk about it again.”

“Absolutely” Evan winked at him and Draco suppressed rolling his eyes. Was he ever going to learn? Or maybe Draco should stop being nice to him and just close the door in front of his nose. Actually, next time he was definitely going to do that.

“Listen, man” Draco turned around and closed the door. “We are not in a relationship anymore! I don’t want to have all this…”

Evan nodded and turned to him. “I know! You said it again and again. And I thought about it and I decided that this wasn’t good enough. Your reason isn’t good enough for me. I want us to be in a relationship and what better time to get back together than right now! Christmas time is best celebrated as a couple and we’ve always made a perfect duo.”

Draco blankly stared at Evan and needed about two or three seconds to realize that Evan just basically told him that he wasn’t going to accept living as a single. And that once again showed Draco why he had broken up with him and decided not to go with Evan to the Masquerade Ball his mother was holding. That and the fact that Evan was a Muggle and would probably freak out over having to see his parent’s estate. And witches and wizards.

Before he could even think of something to say to that, his phone rang and Draco happily accepted the call, hoping for someone to save him from this terrible situation. He had accepted this call so quickly that it hadn’t occurred to him to look at the screen and see who was calling him.

“Um… hi, it’s Harry. Potter. Sorry, it’s Harry Potter and I wanted to…”

Draco widened his eyes. Of course. The literal Savior was calling him to save him from this terrible situation, even though he didn’t have an idea what he was doing.

“Hi Harry” Draco answered, knowing very much that his reaction towards Potter wasn’t normal, but maybe he could explain why he did what he did. At least Evan was frowning at him now.

However, Potter seemed clearly confused. “Um… okay. I just wanted to let you know that I haven’t offered you all our services. Usually, I follow a person around for two or three days just to get a feeling for their personality. I do realize that I haven’t offered you this and I apologize.”

Draco couldn’t suppress a grin. For whatever reason – maybe because Evan was here and he needed to seem happy. “That’s no problem. I completely understand why you didn’t do that.”

“Yeah. Again, I’m sorry” Potter actually seemed really unhappy with himself. However, before Draco could say anything as well, he continued. “So, I would like to follow you around as well. I could do a profile without it of course, but it would be much more accurate, if I could get a feeling for what you’re doing now.” He paused quickly and continued, almost as if he was a little scared of what Draco would say next? “Would that work for you? Or would you rather have me do a profile from afar?”

“I don’t mind actually. You can come over any time.” Seeing Evan’s almost outraged expression was worth it. Would he have agreed to that if Evan hadn’t been around? Draco frowned slightly. Probably not.

Potter inhaled and he chuckled as well. “Thanks. Maybe it would be easier to discuss this in person? Do you think we can meet at the Italian restaurant I’ve shown you in thirty minutes? I’ll be punctual, I swear.”

Draco thought he could hear something that sounded like plates and glasses placed on a table. “Are you already there, which is why you’re punctual?” he asked with a smirk a little too big for his liking.

It was quiet for a second on the other line, as if Potter was thinking how to respond to that, before he sighed and seemingly gave up. “Yes, I am.”

“I’ll be over in thirty minutes” Draco grinned and hung up. He then looked at Evan, who almost glared at him.

“So, this is how it’s going to go?! We broke up and now you’re already moving on to the next person?!” he asked venomously.

Draco shrugged his shoulders. “We’ve been separated for five months already, Evan. I never wanted to get back together. I have my own life right now. You should as well.”

Evan threw the roses at the wall and stomped passed Draco with a glare that could have killed Death itself. “You are the worst person alive, Draco Malfoy! I hate you!”


	9. White Christmas

Harry jumped out of the bus and walked into the Leaky, where he greeted Neville and quickly walked through the bar to Diagon Alley. Malfoy had given him a few directions to some back alley, where he apparently had a shop. He had never seen anything there, but maybe it was something nobody knew about until you needed it.

Checking his notes again, he saw that the next alley he had to turn left, then right and then twice left before there was a right turn and there should be a shop called ‘King Arthur’. Walking through all the different alleys, Harry had never seen so much variety when it came to shops and offices. That was probably due to the fact that he had almost always used Diagon Alley to shop or the closer back alleys in case there was too much going on.

Finally, he saw a narrow but high house which was had the name _King Arthur_ in golden letters on it. It actually looked rather nice. Before Harry entered, he looked in the single window looking into the house, just interested what Malfoy was doing with his life.

In the windows were some beautiful photographs of weddings and families, some magical, some Muggle. There were also some worthless Muggle items on the left and Harry grinned when he saw a line of paperclips, all together hanging from the ceiling as if it was some kind of decoration.

When he entered the shop, a sound of a few trumpets erupted and Harry winced, before trying to hiding his smirk in time for Malfoy to walk out from the back.

“Oh, it’s you. Hey, you’re even on time.” Malfoy must have seen him trying to hide his smirk, as he motioned to the door. “I used to have a normal ‘ding’, but Blaise once came by and hexed the doorbell and I think it works for the name ‘King Arthur’, so I kept it out of spite.”

This time, Harry could hold back his laughter and he closed the door laughing. “Good move.”

“Thanks.” Malfoy seemed surprised that he had complimented him. “So, how exactly does this work? You’re just like following me around?”

“Pretty much, yes. You can call me your assistant for the next two days, if you’d like.”

Malfoy smirked. “I had one of these, they’re not really useful for anything.” He raised his eyebrows as if to say that Harry was probably also not going to be useful for anything.

Harry shrugged his shoulders. “Well, maybe I am. What are you doing here exactly? What’s your job?”

“I’m a fulltime photographer.” He motioned to the wall where Harry just now saw a few dozen absolutely stunning pictures of landscapes, happy children and animals. It looked like Malfoy had travelled to Africa for some wild life photography and he had found some amazing landscapes in Iceland. “Next to that, people have decided that I am a good place to come and ask for Muggle help.”

“What?” Harry turned to Malfoy fully assuming he had been joking, but he shrugged his shoulders.

“Since I’m also offering to take Muggle pictures, people think I’m something of a Muggle expert.”

Harry chuckled and looked back at the wall with pictures only now realizing that these were in fact Muggle pictures. They weren’t moving, yet still so alive and impressing.

“And you can help them?” Harry asked, wandering towards the picture with a small girl holding a huge horse on a leash and beaming at the camera.

Malfoy sighed and shook his head. “Less and less. Yesterday, someone came in with a string of lights and asked me what people did with it. I thought it was just for light?”

“Well, yes. And you could also put it into a Christmas tree.” Harry offered and walked into the shop, looking at the picture of a peaceful happy place on a cliff looking down into a valley. It was so calm and happy that Harry almost wished he could be there.

“Shouldn’t there be candles in a tree?”

Smirking, Harry nodded and turned to Malfoy, realizing that they were a little too close, he pretended to be looking at pictured again and walked back a few steps. “True” he finally said and looked back at his former school nemesis. “But some people are afraid something could happen with real fire and so they put fairy lights into the tree.”

Malfoy frowned. “Fairy lights?”

“That’s what the string of lights is called in a Christmas tree.” Harry smirked, while the Slytherin rolled his eyes.

“You’re hired as my assistant in Muggle stuff.”

Harry laughed. “Thank you so much!”

This whole day seemed so weird. While Malfoy worked on pictures, sometimes actually with Muggle technology, a little less with magic, Harry had enough time realizing that he was completely different from what he had thought he was. He actually even had a sense of humor. Harry really needed to remember to thank Kevin for making him do this.

Malfoy even had a meeting with a customer who wanted to take a family picture with a small child, since the healer told them that she wouldn’t make it passed Christmas very likely. Seeing how much passion Malfoy had and how much he wanted to help people blew Harry’s mind.

Sadly, him being Harry Potter drew a little focus away from the Slytherin. As the father was apparently a huge fan of his. Once he had given his autograph, he returned to the shop and sighed.

“I’m sorry by the way, I didn’t want to be the most important person in your own shop” Harry apologized.

Malfoy looked up from the computer and even smirked. “Don’t worry, Potter. I’ve long ago made peace with the fact that the _almighty Harry Potter_ will probably always outshine everyone else.”

Harry frowned, but shrugged his shoulders. “I still don’t like it.”

“Well, what do you want to do against it?” Malfoy asked. “Do you want to publicly announce that you’re moving to Greenland? I think there are also a few island in Scotland which have almost no people on it. You could live there.”

“Eh, no thanks.”

Malfoy even chuckled. Harry would have never thought he’d see that day. “Well then there’s literally nothing you can do to get away from them. Unless you want to turn yourself into a ‘look children, this is why we don’t want you to be famous’ kind of guy. Drinking until you’re lying in a pool of your own vomit and doing drugs?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “That’s going to be another ‘no thanks’ then.”

Grinning, Malfoy shrugged his shoulders. “Since we’re already talking, I wanted to know how you got to be a relationship creator.”

“What?” Harry laughed and shook his head. “I don’t think that’s my job title.”

“It’s my title for you.” Malfoy had a lopsided grin and then motioned Harry to talk. “So, how did that happen?”

Sitting down, Harry looked at his favorite picture on the wall – the one where he felt so happy and calm – before he answered. “I helped Ginny find a girlfriend and when I saw Kevin and he told me how he was looking for a girlfriend, I remembered another girl who asked me if I knew anybody. And I thought these two were making a good team and after introducing them, Kevin asked me what I would think of doing this professionally.”

Malfoy nodded. Harry thought he looked slightly impressed. “And who came up with the terrible line of marketing?”

“Terrible?!” Harry frowned, though before he could continue, Malfoy shook his head.

“So it was you!” He rolled his eyes. “You _really_ need to work through your flyer again. Almost everything has to be redone. And the marketing line is honestly the worst I’ve ever seen!”

Harry was just about to say something, when Malfoy leaned forward and looked at him intently. “The. Literal. Worst. I’ve. Ever. Seen. Potter.”

Holding his hands up, Harry made sure to show that he wasn’t going to say anything for that. However, he was also suddenly mute due to Malfoy’s intense eyes. He had never actually looked at them so deeply. And the small smirk that was forming on his lips, made Harry shiver slightly. He really needed to get back into his professional way. 

And so, the day ended rather quickly. They were going to meet again the next day in the office again, even though Malfoy had a photo shoot the next day for a Christmas card of a small company. That should be fun, right?


	10. Away in a Manger

When Draco walked towards his favorite little bakery in one of the back alleys, he stopped suddenly. A very familiar looking head of hair had taken his attention. Harry Potter was in this store?! Before he turned on his heels and walked back to his own office, Draco stopped in the middle of this action. His eyes darted over the Gryffindor again and he wet his lips.

He had actually never had time to look at how Potter had turned out to be. He was no longer the small, thin boy he had seen in first year, with clothes that were too big and an almost sarcastic way to see life.

Draco held his breath a little, when he moved slightly to have a better view of Potter in hopes not to get found out for staring. The happy smile he gave Pauline was so honest and his laugh could even be heard outside. Draco just had to smile with him.

The Gryffindor pulled a few coins out of his dark blue and extremely nice fitting jeans and placed it on the counter. When Pauline said something, he held out his hands and shook his head. Draco almost couldn’t get enough when he saw Potter’s muscles playing even through the caramel colored coat.

This was getting out of hands. Draco shook his head and decided not to waste a good coffee just because Potter was inside. He firmly walked to the entrance and pulled the door open to inhale the sweetness of freshly brewed coffee and baked bread. There was something else in the air, though he tried to ignore Potter’s aftershave as much as possible – even though is seemed to weaken his knees with every step of the way.

“Morning Pauline” Draco greeted the woman behind the counter and then smirked at Potter. “Hey, I never thought I’d see you here.”

Potter chuckled and there was a special light in his eyes, as if this store was his happy place, which Draco would believe quite quickly.

“Well, I found it yesterday” the Gryffindor explained and accepted the coffee Pauline handed him. “I completely lost my way and was just about to just apparate out of here, when I saw this bakery and decided to stay and eat something.”

Draco nodded and pulled out a few coins as well. Pauline already knew what he wanted. In the last two years, he had only changed his order a handful of times. “I think that’s how everyone here found it.”

Potter seemed thoughtful, when he continued: “Weirdly enough, I could find my way out of here afterwards very easily.”

Draco laughed. “I think that’s called magic.”

“Still” Potter chuckled. “Not used to it after all these years.”

“Yeah right” Draco rolled his eyes, though he did see a spark of darkness around Potter, which was gone so quickly, he could have imagined it. Had it not been for the light that had left his eyes, Draco would have actually thought it was nothing. However, maybe there was more to this sentence. Before he could think more about this, Pauline gave him his coffee and he smiled at her. “Thanks. If you need any pictures taken, let me know.”

“Not until I’ve decided to open a website. And I don’t think I’ll need it. Magic works in my way, I believe.” She winked at Harry who chuckled and waved goodbye as they left the store. Once again, Draco was focusing on the Golden Boy’s arms too much, before he got back to reality.

In his shop, he found Pansy standing in the middle. Draco stopped shortly and wondered how she would react when she’d see Potter following him. However, out of all the things he had imagined, he would have never thought to see her widening her eyes and running towards him to _hug_ him.

“Absolutely not! Harry, I thought I’d never get to see you again!” Pansy grinned, while Potter laughed. Draco frowned and watched them closely. Since when were Pansy and Potter so buddy-buddy? No, they seemed more – almost friends?

While Draco had been thinking, Potter was already talking. “What are you talking about, Pansy? I told Jason I’d come to your Christmas banquet. Did he not give you the news?”

Pansy shook her head and looked darkly. “I might have to talk to my husband again. This is unacceptable. How in Merlin’s name did I think you were a good matchmaker?”

“No idea” Potter joked and shrugged his shoulders. “I know for a fact that you’re happy with Jason, though. So I’m not questioning myself.”

“You shouldn’t.” Pansy laughed.

They finally stopped talking to each other, when Draco cleared his throat and brought them back to the other person in the room – mainly him. Pansy turned to him with almost an apologetic expression, while Potter just smirked and took a sip from his coffee. The spark in his eyes had returned.

Draco shook his head, deciding not to waste his thoughts on Potter. Even though his brain somehow really wanted to go there. “Pansy, how can I help you? Why are you in my shop?”

His best friend grinned and shrugged her shoulders. “I’d like to invite you to the Christmas banquet and if you’re interested take a few pictures. I just love them!”

“Of course, Pansy! I’d love to help you out that way.” Before he could say another thing, Pansy turned back to Potter who had taken another sip of his coffee and seemed surprised that she was talking to him again, as he swallowed quickly and turned away to quickly cough.

“What are you doing around Draco anyway, Harry? Wait, is he a client of yours and are you following his work? You always were amazing at all of that and…” Pansy just kept talking and talking, which Draco already was familiar with, though it seemed as if Potter also was used to that.

He had taken off his coat and glanced over at Draco with what seemed to be an amused expression. Draco frowned quickly, though returned the smile without thinking and sat down behind his desk in the back room.

Draco heard Potter speak up again in one of Pansy’s small pauses for air. “It was nice meeting you, Pansy, but maybe we can talk another time? When I’m actually visiting you?”

“Great idea, Harry. I’m taking you by your words, come visit us any time!”

“Of course, take care, Pansy!”

“You too!”

The trumpets at his door sounded again, while Potter laughed and walked into the back room, where he stopped by the door frame. Draco decided not to look up and at him. The laughter that rang through the shop was so happy and almost knee-weakening. He was sure that in his red chequered shirt, he looked even better than with his coat. It didn’t seem to bother Potter, as he started talking: “I’m not sure how you can just ignore the trumpets by the door. I wouldn’t be able to help anybody, laughing so hard.”

Draco shrugged his shoulders. “You get used to it.” He looked up and regretted it almost immediately. Yes, Potter looked amazing: The shirt was stretching quite nicely over his muscles and it gave him a nice color. Draco cleared his throat and raised his eyebrows. “Don’t you have a door sound?”

“No, I have a receptionist.” Potter smirked. “We got help, when too many people asked for our help and we just couldn’t do it anymore. I found Maria online and asked her to join our office. And she’s basically the manager of everything.”

“Manager of everything?” Draco repeated and frowned. “What do you mean?”

Potter chuckled. “She usually plans the dates for first meetings with the clients, she collects the data for all the profiles, she does the invoices, she keeps our spirits high and to be honest, she’s like a mother to both of us and most clients who came to the office. So, a manager for everything.”

Draco smirked and turned to look at the watch at the wall. “Okay, I have a quite a few things to prepare for the photo shoot today. Are you interested in helping me?”

“Sure, lead the way, boss.”

“Now that’s what I like to hear” Draco grinned and motioned his new assistant to walk up the stairs where he had his storage for everything photograph related. He also tried his hardest to ignore the way Potter’s grin made him feel. He must have been nervous for that photo shoot if any little joke would make him shiver like that.


	11. Christmas (Baby, Please come Home)

> Hello teapot!
> 
> I haven’t heard from you in the last three days! Did you die?! Did you fall into pieces? If yes, can I have your Moontrimmer? PLEASE! I could sell it for so much money! I could retire right now and never work a single day until I die!  
>  Anyway, we’ve decided to hold another Christmas feast on the 15th, yes it’s in the middle of the week and yes that was intentional. Yes, I want you to be there and no I haven’t invited any media. No, you can’t get out of this and no, only family and very close friends are invited, max. 15 people. Yes, I am going to be mad at you if you don’t show up.  
>  Do you have other questions? I’m awaiting a very enthusiastic ‘Yes, I cannot wait to see you guys again’. Ron tells me by the way that he didn’t like you only coming by to get the calendar; he would have liked to talk to you a little longer. Don’t be a stranger, Harry!
> 
> Love, teacup

Harry chuckled when he pushed the door to his office open. Maria was already sitting there and looked up at him, questioningly.

“My best friend just told me to be at her Christmas party. She’s not going to accept no as an answer” he explained and placed a cup of coffee on her desk.

Maria smiled. “These friends are the best ones.” She motioned to Kevin’s office. “Kevin went on a meeting with Peter. He wanted to drop out, because all ladies are apparently too modern for him.”

Rolling his eyes, Harry sighed. “Is it the ‘paying for themselves’ thing again? I’m sure I’ll find a woman, who’s okay in eating without having to pay.”

“Well no, this time he complained that the women we give him are all not suitable for what he needs.”

Harry shook his head. “His idea of a relationship is a toxic one.” He frowned at Maria. “Did Kevin take the red folder?” Maria nodded and Harry sighed again. “Fine. Maybe Peter finds a wife like that.”

“Oh, and he left a few profiles for your newest client on your desk. I told him to wait, since you might have a better grasp on things, but he really wanted to try it” Maria chuckled and turned to the phone which started ringing just then.

Harry mouthed ‘thanks’ and walked into his own office. There were indeed a dozen folders on his desk. He sat down, checking his watch and decided he had a little time to look through the people Kevin thought matched Malfoy.

The first three profiles, Harry only had to read the names and placed them on the ‘no’ pile. Herbert Wheeler, Basil Lee and Laurence Tyler were notorious for their very specific wishes in men. And yes, Malfoy would suit what they wanted their men to look like; however, they all were looking for men with a lot of political influence and Harry was somehow sure that the Slytherin was done with his short and painful excursion into politics in school. It had left him with a permanent scar on his arm.

Calvin Goodwin and Mason Nelson were the next two names, which Harry looked at a little closer. They were definitely interested in people who were a little creative and Malfoy who was making pictures for a living clearly seemed creative. Still, they didn’t really match what Harry had seen in him. There was something… something he just couldn’t put his finger on.

So, they went to the ‘no’ pile as well. He grabbed the next three folders and opened them to find Joey Hubbs, Rufus Kirk and…

“Absolutely not.” Harry laughed loudly and shook his head. “Jack Bond?! Malfoy would freak out in a relationship with him!” He remembered how Jack had continuously made references to him being so close to James Bond and how he was amazing at driving cars at high speed and that his goal was to be a real life James Bond. This man had been one of their earliest clients, just like Basil and Peter, who just couldn’t go with the changing times.

Before he could go through the other ones, he checked his watch and jumped up. Almost too late again.

He grabbed his phone and his coat. It was the last day where he followed Malfoy around. The photo shoot yesterday had been very interesting. Especially to watch how the Slytherin worked. He really did know his craft. And it was fascinating to see how the wizards crowed around him to see the Muggle picture which wasn’t moving.

Before he forgot, he quickly sent another text to Ginny and bid goodbye to Maria.

> Teacup,
> 
> Sorry, I’m busy and no you cannot have my Moontrimmer. It’s my pride and joy. And the only one still in existence.  
>  I will be there on the 15th, I promise. And tell Ron he has my phone number, he can write as well. Or if he prefers the owl post, I still get it as well. Tell him: IT’S CRISTMAS; I AM FREAKING BUSY EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK. You can scream at him if you want. That’s all from me. See you soon.
> 
> Your incredibly busy teapot

*

Harry made it to Malfoy’s shop in time, though he had to forfeit his coffee. Surprisingly, there was a coffee waiting on the desk at the front. When he opened the door and the trumpets sounded, Harry snorted and shook his head.

“Hello Potter! Take the coffee and come on up! I’m checking my equipment” he heard Malfoy from the upper level.

Climbing the stairs, Harry took a quick sip of his coffee and found the Slytherin in the middle of about a thousand pieces of camera tech. “How did you know it was me?”

Malfoy looked up and smirked. “Nobody else has so much fun with my door sound. Could you hand me the case with the camera lens inside?”

“Um…” Harry looked at the floor, where he just saw a few smaller and bigger cases, before he looked back at Malfoy unsure of which one he should take.

The Slytherin looked up when Harry wasn’t doing anything and chuckled. “It’s the one next to your left foot. The smallest one.” Harry carefully grabbed the case and held it towards the Slytherin, who accepted it. He started to work on something, before he turned to Harry again. “Potter, I’m curious, I just never knew how to ask you, but why do you call yourself Milos King?”

Harry shrugged his shoulders and sat down in an empty chair. “It’s complicated. Well, not really: As I’ve said, whenever I said my name was Harry Potter, people would just come, because it was me. When I changed it and said they would meet Milos King, most of them stopped harassing me.”

“Sure, but why Milos?” Malfoy frowned and looked at him, before he turned back to cleaning his camera. “You could have chosen any other name?”

“Well, yes. Milos means ‘beloved’ and I thought that worked.”

“So your name is ‘beloved King’?” Malfoy laughed and shook his head. “Oh, I see, not modest at all.”

Harry shrugged his shoulders, though he grinned as well. “There’s more to it. Have you ever heard of Midas?”

Malfoy looked up and raised his eyebrows. “Is it an illness?”

“Not quite. It’s a Greek mythology.” Harry chuckled. “Midas was a king who, I forgot for whatever reason, got a wish granted that everything he touched turned to gold. However, he didn’t realize that this included food and water and soon he couldn’t continue living like that and he touched his own heart, effectively turning himself into gold.”

The Slytherin stared at him blankly and whistled then. “Shit. Next time you really need to warn me before you tell me a story like that. But why did you tell me that?”

Harry smirked and shrugged his shoulders. “Well, sometimes I feel as if being the Golden Boy, the Savior, the Boy who lived twice is my own curse. No matter where I go or what I do, everything I’m touching turns into this weird fascination with me.” Harry sighed and mimicked a few voices he had heard over the course of his life. “ _Oh look, he went into that shop, let’s see what he bought and get the same thing! Check it, mate, it’s Harry Potter, let’s order whatever he takes!_ ” He rolled his eyes.

“Then why didn’t you call yourself Midas?”

Harry chuckled. “Listen, I am dramatic, but not like that! I just decided to take a name which is close to that. Milos, and I decided to keep the ‘King’, but to have it work as my last name.”

Malfoy nodded thoughtfully. “I honestly didn’t know. I’m sorry, Potter.”

“Don’t worry” Harry smirked. “Nobody knows. Well, Ginny knows, but that’s only because she came up with me getting another name and we brainstormed a full night long.”

“So, is she still your girlfriend?”

“Ginny?” Harry burst out laughing. “Absolutely not! She’s gay herself so, she’s much more interested in other people. And she’s in a rather serious relationship with Luna.”

Draco shrugged his shoulders as an indicator that he couldn’t have possibly known that. The Gryffindor was still laughing and it was giving Draco shivers though he started chuckling as well.

Potter suddenly looked up and grinned. “Hey, since we’ve spent so much time around each other, how about we drop this stupid ‘last names only’ policy?”

“Sounds good to me.”

Holding out his hand, Potter smirked. “Well then, I’m Harry.”

Laughing, Draco shook his head, though returned the handshake. “Nice to meet you then, Harrison. I’m Draco.”

“Uh, boy, two can play that game, Drayce.” Potter – Harry frowned and shook his head. “Though it seems to work better with my name.”


	12. Looks like a cold, cold winter

Opening his shop on the afternoon again, Draco stopped at the threshold and frowned slightly. It had been so normal to have Harry around and now, him not being around was a little… empty. Shaking his head, he opened the door. He smirked when the trumpets sounded, just remembering how Harry had always laughed at the sound of them and placed the cup of coffee on the front desk. He turned the radio on and whistled along to the song playing. As he walked past the picture which Harry seemed to have taken a liking to, he stopped and turned.

The valley from the top of a hill. Taking it down, Draco smirked and turned around to the desk, with an idea in his head. However, before he could even attempt to start to do something with it, he heard the door open again and when he looked around, his mother stood there. Widening his eyes, he tilted his head a little.

“Draco, darling! How are you?” his mother asked in a clearly forced cheery way.

Raising his eyebrows, Draco shrugged his shoulders. “I am fine, thank you mother. What are you doing here?”

His rather impolite question didn’t seem to have any effect on her, as she chuckled and kept the forced cheeriness up. “Well, since you’re not coming by so often, I have decided to come and look for you instead.”

“Okay.” Draco frowned and motioned outside, where he just saw a very familiar man. “Then what is Father doing here?”

His mother smiled and looked at her husband, before she turned back to look at him. “He wants to talk to you as well.”

“Fine. He can do that inside.”

Smiling, the Malfoy matriarch shook her head. “Oh dragon, you know he doesn’t like it in here. Don’t you want to show a little respect and go outside to talk to him?”

“No.” Draco crossed his arms in front of his chest and raised his eyebrows. “If he wants to talk to me, he has to get over his ego and come in here. There’s nothing harmful inside.”

“You know that’s not what he doesn’t like, Draco. Its’ the fact that…” Draco didn’t let her finish the sentence, as he cut her off. He did catch her disapproving look, however, he couldn’t care less right now.

“Oh, I know why he doesn’t want to come in here. It’s too much Muggle stuff. But he has to get this stupid idea out of his head and just… accept that I am his son!”

His mother smiled softly and nodded. “He does accept you as his son.”

Draco stayed quiet, knowing too well that whatever he would say next would be harmful not only to the relationship to his father, but also towards his mother. And she did somewhat accept his life choices – she was at least trying to get him a nice pureblood wizard and not a witch.

“Please, Draco. At least do it for me.”

Rolling his eyes, Draco groaned. “Fine. But next time, I won’t do anything. I can’t always be the one to go out of my comfort zone for him.”

Smiling, his mother nodded, as if she was the one to say what his father would do in the future and they both stepped outside of the shop.

“Father. What are you doing here?” Draco asked not really politely, though that was exactly how he felt.

His father raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “Draco, this is as far as I am willing to go for you. It’s almost a decade since you left Hogwarts and you haven’t found a wife to live your future with. You have until the Christmas Masquerade Ball to show us your future man or I will be invoking my right as the family patriarch to accept a marriage offer from one of the other pureblood families.”

“What?!” Draco widened his eyes, almost frozen in shock. “You can’t do that! I’m an adult; you can’t just marry me off!”

Now it was his father’s turn to cross the arms in front of his chest. “I can and I will! You’ve fooled around for long enough; it’s time to get serious. So unless you show me a worthy man of your own, I will do what’s necessary to give you a future. With a wife.”

“But I don’t want _that_ future!”

“Then I believe I’ve offered you the option to take your future into your own hands.”

His father couldn’t be so cruel, right? Draco shook his head. “But the Christmas Masquerade Ball is in seven days!” Draco looked at his mother for some help, though she seemed far too interested by what was in his shop window and he sighed. There was no other option. Apparently, he needed to change his approach to the matchmaker thing. “Fine” he relented. There was no other way out of it.

His father nodded. “Perfect. I’ll see you in a week.”

They walked off and Draco groaned as he closed the door of his shop. “Fuck.” What now? What could he possibly do that would change the outcome?! It seemed as if he had to go and marry woman. Taking his phone, he quickly dialed Harry’s number and waited for a few seconds while it rang. Finally, the Gryffindor answered. There seemed to be quite a lot of background noise when he picked up.

“Hey Draco, how can I help you?”

Hearing this, Draco almost tore up and he quickly cleared his throat. “I have a little problem. You know how I wanted this matchmaker thing for the Ball only?” He stopped, actively waiting for Harry to answer this question.

He could hear how the man on the other line walked through a noisy room and then something like a door closing and it was suddenly quiet in the background. “Sure. What changed? Do you want to stop the process?”

“No! No!” Draco shook his head and locked the door. He was not going to have anybody over today. He needed to figure out what to do with this new information. “My father was just over and told me I needed to present him a marriage worthy man or he would sell me off.”

“Human trafficking is illegal, Draco.” Harry chuckled softly and Draco felt slightly better. “However, are you telling me, he’s going to choose your husband then? From the existing pool of purebred wizards?”

Draco huffed and shook his head. “Purebloods, Potter. And it’s going to be a wife.”

“Shit. And by the way, I know what you’re called” Harry chuckled again. “I just wanted to lift your mood a little. Did it work?”

“No.”

Draco heard the door opening again and a female voice was talking to Harry. The background sounded as if a party was going on. Draco could even make out the words the woman was saying. “Harry, Thomas is here to talk to you. He’s just filled out a form saying he found the person he was looking for.”

“Can you take a message? I’m in the middle of a meeting.” Draco heard Harry say, even though he tried to cover the piece where Draco would be hearing him better.

“He really wants to talk to you, but I can tell him to wait.”

“Sure, thanks Maria. I’ll be out as soon as the meeting is over.” Draco then heard Harry pulling the hand away from the speaker and he talked to him again. “Sorry about that. We’re having a Christmas party for everyone who successfully found a partner through us.”

Draco smiled weakly. “And then you’re off talking to your clients?”

“Parties aren’t really my thing. I can pretend to like them, but quiet is my real happy place.” Harry chuckled and Draco once again felt his mood change rather a lot. He felt instantly better. At least he could now talk to someone, right? “Anyway, Malfoy, I never worked with the assumption to only give you a date. I always wanted to present you with someone for your life. Just give me another two days max and I’ll present you the man you’re looking for.”

“Nobody is _that_ good, Harry.”

“Malfoy, don’t you trust me?”

“Absolutely not, Potter.”

Barking laughter roared through the speaker of his phone and Draco smirked over how easy it was to make Harry laugh.

Finally, after almost a full minute, where the Savior had to calm down, he answered, still chuckling a little. “Fine. That’s understandable. However, I have never disappointed a client, no matter how difficult their demands were. I will not disappoint you. That’s a promise.”

“Okay. Thanks, I guess.”

Harry chuckled and Draco heard a door open again. “I’m almost done, Maria, one second” he said and turned back to Draco. “I’ll see you tomorrow then. Don’t worry about the matchmaking, I’ll find your special someone by the time the ball comes around, okay?”

“Sure. Thanks Harry.”

“You’re very welcome, Draco.”


	13. Go tell it on the Mountain

No, no, no! Nothing fit what Draco was looking for. Harry groaned and placed the last profile he had laying around on the ‘no’ pile. There was nobody in their data base that matched what he had seen in his newest client the days he had followed him around.

Leaning back in his chair, Harry stared at the ceiling, not really sure where to look next. He hadn’t needed to go out looking for the right person for someone in a while now. Yes, it worked out usually, but not when he had only one and a half days left to present Draco with the man for him. They needed time to get to know each other for the time for the Christmas Masquerade Ball. Why did it always have to be so complicated?

A knock on his door, made Harry turn to the open door and he saw Kevin leaning at the frame. “Are you okay, Harry?”

“Not really” he chuckled. “A little in over my head, to be honest.”

Kevin nodded and smirked. “Draco Malfoy?”

“Yes, I cannot find anybody for him. And I’m not sure where to start now.” Harry sighed and got up to walk out of the office, when Kevin stopped him and shook his head.

“Nicolai is here and wants to talk to you.”

Harry groaned and closed his eyes. “Shit. Fine, I’ll talk to him.”

Kevin raised his eyebrows. “I can also just tell him to leave. I honestly don’t know how he found out you worked here and…”

“He’s an Auror, Kevin. If he wants to find people, he will find them. Thanks though.” Harry chuckled and walked out of his office, seeing his ex standing at the table with Maria. He did have a certain politeness around him. As soon as he saw Harry, he smiled at him.

Harry stopped and turned around to Kevin: “Did you already run a check for Alisha? She put her profile down yesterday and I think Malcolm would be a nice pair. I’m not sure, yet, but can you check them?”

Kevin nodded and walked into his own office, while Harry turned back to the dark brown haired wizard at the front desk. He caught Maria glancing at the man in front of her slightly interested. Well, in his fairly elegant dark blue Muggle suit and the nicely kept hair, he did look rather handsome. That was also how Harry had fallen for him.

“Nicolai, nice to see you” Harry greeted him and smiled weakly.

The Auror frowned slightly. “Really? You didn’t look so happy when you told me to go to hell.”

Chuckling, Harry shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I wasn’t happy at all. And you telling me to stick to my Auror career wasn’t really what I needed then.”

Nicolai held up his hands and the exposed wrist showed an expensive looking watch. “I am sorry about that, Harry. I have to be honest with you; I didn’t think you’d be that successful.”

“I don’t think anybody would have thought that. Would you like some tea?” Harry motioned him to walk down the hallway to the kitchen at the end of his office.

“Absolutely.” Nicolai followed, though he stopped at the kitchen door. When they passed Kevin’s office, Harry caught him looking at them suspiciously. Before he could say something, though, his former boyfriend started talking again: “So, are you not going to ask me why I came to look for you?” 

Harry shrugged his shoulders and put on a lemon tea. “I figured you would tell me, when you were ready.”

Nicolai shook his head, grinning. “You are still too nice, Harry. Sometimes you need to just bark at something.”

He just wanted to answer, when his phone vibrated and he found Ron finally writing a text message. It must have taken him at least half an hour to write this. Harry smirked, when he read it.

> Hey Harry!
> 
> Ginny is holding another party. Are we ever going to meet your boyfriend? Please bring him along! Anyways, Neville said he saw you in a bakery with Malfoy!? And you too looked close to each other, I’m just wondering what’s going on there. Please tell me!
> 
> Ron

Shaking his head, Harry grinned and quickly shot a message back.

> Morning Ron
> 
> Yes, I know Ginny is holding a party and no I won’t be bringing anybody. Don’t worry about Malfoy, we’ll talk later.
> 
> See you soon, Harry

He then turned back to Nicolai and raised his eyebrows. “Do you want me to scream at you, then?” He tried his hardest to hold back his laughter, though it didn’t work at all and he turned to the tea, laughing.

“No!” Nicolai rolled his eyes. “Whatever. I wanted to ask you for a favor.”

Harry motioned him to continue talking, while he placed a cup on the table and filled it with the tea, before he sat down and filled another cup as well. Nicolai sighed and walked in to sit down in one of the empty chairs.

“It’s my mother. She’s dying and…”

“Holy shit, I am so sorry! I didn’t know, Nick!” Harry widened his eyes and placed the cup of tea back on the table. Watching his ex closely, he saw how he was actually fighting the tears. Even though they weren’t together anymore, Harry really wanted to hold him. He still decided against it – something was holding him back, and he didn’t know what it was.

Nicolai cleared his throat and took a sip of the tea. “Anyway, she told me that she wanted to meet my man.” He bit his lower lip and looked at Harry. “I didn’t tell her that we broke up.”

“I…” Harry didn’t know what to say. This wasn’t really what he had in mind for his life. “I don’t think I can do that” he said carefully. He narrowed his eyes and looked at his tea, when he suddenly had a very, very bad idea. Actually a good one…

He looked up at Nicolai, who still had the same begging eyes that he had when they were in a relationship a few years back. “Don’t you have anybody else?”

His ex shook his head and sighed. “I just didn’t have time to get to know somebody more. I usually go home after work and listen to some music, read a book.”

Harry nodded slowly. He liked to listen to classical music, he was sophisticated, an Auror… His ex might be the perfect match with Draco! Not to mention that they both were very good looking, they could be the next it-couple if they played it right.

“I might have…” Harry held up his hands and decided to rephrase that. “I know you don’t like me doing my job and finding you someone, _but_ I might actually have someone for you. Though it might be a little contentious.”

Nicolai raised his eyebrows, almost back to his own self. “I’m listening.”

“Draco Malfoy.”

“What?” Nicolai frowned and was about to say something, when he stopped and tilted his head slightly. He once again seemed to want to say something, when he again held himself back and turned back to Harry. “Are you serious?”

Nodding, Harry crossed his legs. “I am actually. I think you two would match together rather well.”

Nicolai kept frowning as he looked into his tea and then once again back at Harry. “I guess I’m actually open to that. So what happens next? Am I now your customer?”

“Client” Harry chuckled and shook his head. “No. But Draco still is. If you’re okay, I could tell him to meet you tomorrow. He’s busy today, Pansy is throwing a Christmas Banquet.” Harry smirked and grabbed his phone. “But tomorrow in the afternoon in the café next to the shop where you buy your suits?”

Nicolai rolled his eyes. “You still remember? Sure. I could do three o’clock. Thank you Harry, really.”

“Sure.” Harry smiled and felt a weird kind of pain in his heart. This must have been the feeling of seeing his ex moving on and getting another relationship, while he was still trying to find someone.

While the Auror left and bid goodbye to Maria, Harry just wanted to write Draco a message, when he received one from Ron.

> Waaaaaaiiiit!! Are you and Malfoy a couple?! Holy shit, I’m throwing up!

Harry stared at the display in disbelieve and shook his head. “What?”


	14. Lo, How a rose E’er blooming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you may know this, but I currently speak three languages (trying to learn a fourth). This one is by far my favorite non-English Christmas song. If you want to hear the song in the original language (German), type in: “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen”. There are some amazingly beautiful renditions of this! <3

Draco was so nervous, he was afraid he was going to throw up. When he had arrived at Pansy’s Christmas Banquet – a little early to make pictures of the food and people greeting – Harry had been there shortly after. He had given him the good news that he had found him a match and that there was supposed to be a meeting the next day – now to be exact.

And he was stupid enough to accept. Why had he done that?!

Well, it was too late to do anything about that, as he had already arrived at the place where Harry had told him to be. It was in Muggle London in a seemingly popular café. He sighed and opened the door. It was by far too late to run away.

“How am I supposed to know who I’m looking for, Harry?!” he had asked and rolled his eyes, when he caught Jason walking through the room towards Pansy. He grabbed his camera and pointed it at his best friend, taking a picture of when Jason placed a soft kiss on her head. These two were just too precious.

Harry had only laughed and shook his head. “He’s going to have a red rose on the table. And I told him that you were showing up with a copy of ‘Romeo and Juliet’. You do have one of that, don’t you?”

“I hate how easy you can read me” Draco had glared at the Gryffindor, who snorted and shook his head. “And if you continue eating from the cake, I will take a picture to prove to Pansy who’s eating away her food before it’s even put out for guests. This is not proper etiquette.”

“I’m not eating!” Harry had really tried to convince him that he wasn’t sneaking bites of the cake. So, the next time he did, Draco had actually caught it and took two pictures. One of Harry having half a spoon in his mouth and the second of him laughing at the camera.

Draco shook his head and pulled the copy of Romeo and Juliet out of his jacket. He hoped that he wasn’t the first one here and quickly saw the rose laying on a table with… a rather attractive man. He was just fixing the collar of his white shirt and the light blue suit jacket. And he looked so put together.

Slowly, he walked towards the table and smiled. “Um, hi. Are you Nicolai Loughty?”

“I am” the dark brown haired man said and got up, holding his hand out. “Hi, you’re Draco Malfoy, right?”

Nodding, Draco shook his hand and sat down across from him. “I hope you weren’t waiting for too long.”

Nicolai shrugged his shoulders and smiled. “Not really. I do have a tendency to be somewhere early rather than later.”

“I know that tendency. I’ve got it too” Draco admitted and grinned.

While he sat down, he suddenly remembered how he had been early far too much at Pansy’s and the door had suddenly opened to reveal a basically walking snowman. It had been Potter who for some weird reason thought it would be a good idea to walk there.

“You do know we have magic for that, right?” Draco had asked, though couldn’t stop grinning.

Harry had shrugged his shoulders and brushed even more snow off of him while he threw a few snowflakes into his direction. “I just love snow, you old woolen sock.”

Draco still didn’t know if that was supposed to be an insult or not, since Pansy and Jason laughed at that when they came by to say hello to their new guest.

Blinking, Draco was back with this much sexier man in front of him and smiled, trying to forget about Potter. “So, what do you do, Nicolai?”

The dark blond man grabbed his cup of coffee and shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. “I’m an Auror. But I’m currently on the bench, so not that bad for Christmas.”

“Why are you on the bench?” Draco asked, when he saw a server approach.

“Hi there” she smiled and looked at both of them, though Draco found she had looked at the other man a little more interested. Nonetheless, she still continued talking. “Anything I can get you to drink?” she asked Draco.

“Black coffee is fine.” Why did he have the need to not be complicated? He would have liked to go for some tea now, but… something was holding him back.

The server nodded and motioned to the cake. “You can just come up and get whatever you’d like and we’ll bring it to the table.”

“Thank you!” Nicolai said and smirked, when she walked away. “I’ll never understand how people can drink black coffee.”

Draco shrugged his shoulders. “It’s not too bad.”

“But it is” Nicolai grinned, while Draco rolled his eyes. However, he grinned as well.

“Do you want any specific cake? Otherwise, I’ll just bring you one” he asked while getting up.

Nicolai shrugged his shoulders. “Surprise me.” He smirked quickly. “But I will be taking this as a sign for what our future might hold. So choose wisely.”

Draco snorted. “Oh yes, thank you. No pressure at all, then.”

“None at all!” the blonde man winked at him and took another sip of his coffee, while Draco laughed.

As he stood in front of the cake presentation thing, he saw the cake that looked a lot like the one Harry had been eating and trying to hide in front of Pansy. Draco had stared at the relationship these two had. Since, when Harry had stopped eating, Pansy brought out the real cake for everybody else. Harry had only laughed and shrugged his shoulders with a wink at Draco.

“I guess that means I actually can eat that cake” he had said and very un-pureblood put his finger right over the top and into his mouth.

“You are terrible, Harry.”

“I already know that. Guess Pansy knows that too.”

Draco shook his head, looked up and just picked a random piece of cake for the two of them.


	15. Shake up Christmas

Apparating right onto the doorstep of Ginny’s house, Harry was suddenly bombarded with Christmas music, happy laughter and loud discussions. He chuckled and knocked at the door, which was opened almost immediately.

“Harry!” Ginny called out and threw her arms around his neck. “I almost thought you were trying to hide again!”

Shaking his head, Harry pulled her arms of him and grinned. “I would never hide from you! I’m pretty sure you’d be able to find me wherever I’d go.”

“Absolutely!” She laughed and pulled him inside.

There were a few people inside already, the magical Christmas tree was shining in all possible colors and the happy atmosphere around here made Harry almost instantly happy.

“As I live and breathe, it’s Harry Potter!” a very familiar voice sounded and Harry turned around to pull his best friend into a hug.

“Vice Head Auror Ronald Weasley! What brings us the honor of having such a high official Ministry worker at this Christmas party?!” 

Ron laughed and shoved Harry away. “It’s nice to see you again. Do you think after Christmas you’ve got a little more time? For a meeting as an example?”

Harry nodded and chuckled. “Absolutely. My company has Christmas holidays, so I am absolutely able to meet up again. This time is just always busy.”

“Harry!” another voice sounded and Harry didn’t even have to turn around to know it was Hermione who hurried through the room to pull him into a tight hug as well. “I missed you!”

“Aw, guys. I missed you two too. I just don’t have much time right now.”

Hermione shook her head and frowned at him. “You need to start setting boundaries. Your work can’t dictate every waking second of your life.”

Harry smirked at his friend. “’Mione, it doesn’t. I am here, after all, right? This isn’t work.”

“Ginny threatened you to come?” Ron asked and Harry laughed and nodded. He showed Ron his phone and the text message of where Ginny basically stopped all his questions and reasons why he couldn’t do it.

Ron shook his head. “That’s Ginny alright.”

Hermione chuckled. “Well, since you’re here; come and eat something with us. We’ve got so much to talk about.”

“We do?” Harry asked and turned to Ron, who just shrugged his shoulders, but chuckled nonetheless. Smirking, Harry followed his friends to a quieter corner of Ginny’s and Luna’s home to talk to them again.

*

Most people had already left, when Ginny walked into the kitchen and found Harry sitting there, drinking a beer. He had one foot on top of the chair and placed his head on his raised knee. Something about this happiness was really tearing on him. And for whatever reason he was unable to find the source of this weird feeling.

Ginny sat down next to him and raised her eyebrows. “Harry? What is going on with you? You’re behaving weird.”

“I’m feeling weird.” Harry shook his head and took another sip of his beer. “And I don’t know why.”

“Did something change in the last few days?” Ginny asked and pulled the plate with what Christmas cookies had been left closer. She picked a small star and bit into it, while her attention went back to him.

Harry sighed and looked at the cookies. “Not really. But I’m always in constant change. Thomas found a wife. Peter wants to sue us for giving him false hope and I finally found a match for Draco.”

Ginny widened her eyes. “This Peter guy is the one who doesn’t know that women can have a career as well, right?”

“Yeah” Harry sighed. “Not even the Red Folder could satisfy him, apparently.”

“Wow. And now, you’re getting sued? How is that ever supposed to go over?”

Harry shrugged his shoulders. “I have absolutely no idea. I guess I might have to hire a lawyer from somewhere. I’m slightly tempted to just ask Nicolai to make Peter and this whole situation disappear.”

Ginny stopped in the middle of her action, her hand raised in the air about to take another Christmas cookie, when she turned to him. “So, you’re talking to Nicolai again? Maybe that’s what this weird feeling is?”

“I don’t think so.” Harry sighed again and looked at his beer. “His mother’s about to die and he wanted me to pretend to be his boyfriend so she would be happy. And I suddenly had this idea that Draco would fit with his personality rather well.” Thoughtfully, he grabbed his beer and took a sip. “And I think to see him move on was… not the easiest thing.”

His best friend snorted and shook her head. “No. Harry, Nicolai had moved on two weeks after you left him. I showed you the pictures of him and this other Unspeakable. You had no feelings for him whatsoever. I don’t even know why the two of you got together.”

Harry shrugged his shoulders. “I think I needed someone. It wasn’t…”

“Love” Ginny finished his sentence and repeated it again, when Harry frowned at her. “It wasn’t love, Harry. You needed someone, he was there. And when you felt better, you realized that you grew and he didn’t grow with you.” She leaned back and smirked. “Are you sure you can handle what I’m about to tell you?”

“I always could” Harry rolled his eyes and grabbed his beer again, taking another sip.

“I think you’re in love with Draco Malfoy.”

Harry chocked on the beer, coughed and placed the bottle on the table, to get some air again. Ginny looked at him as if she wanted to say ‘I did warn you’, though he was much more occupied with what she had just actually said.

“Gin, I am not in… love with him. That’s ridiculous. Come on. I… He’s a client!” He shook his head, remembering how Draco had laughed when he had sorted the camera equipment and Harry had no idea what to do and messed up at least twice. “You must be out of your mind.” Harry stared at his beer bottle and shook his head. 

“Tell me Harry, when did this weird feeling start? Tell me the exact moment” Ginny inquired.

Harry shrugged his shoulders. “I was… I was talking to Nicolai. And he told me about his mother. He asked if I would be there for him. I felt really bad for him, but I knew that if I were to show any kind of emotion, he would basically pull me into his net and I remember thinking that I didn’t have time for any more things.”

His best friend frowned. “Did it start there?”

“No.” Harry shook his head. “It started after…” He stopped and groaned, hiding his face in his hands. “It started after I promised to set a date between him and Draco.”

“Hmm” Ginny clearly _pretended_ to be thinking, though she had this knowing grin on her face.

Harry sighed frustrated. “Great. Couldn’t you just have kept me in my ignorance? I felt much better at home than having to deal with the fact that I am _in fucking love with Draco Malfoy_! How am I supposed to tell people around me that this happened?” He fell back in his chair, playing his foot on the floor and throwing his head back so he stared at the ceiling. “Two days ago, I accidentally made Ron think I was in a relationship with Draco. And he told me he’d throw up. Now I have to tell him that ‘Listen, I would actually like to be his boyfriend’?!” He looked back at Ginny. “It doesn’t even matter. They had their first date yesterday and Draco called me and told me it went well.”

Ginny had apparently just let him rant about what was on his mind. However, now she smirked and shook her head. “Did you feel weird after the phone call as well?”

“Yes.” It was almost a sob; though not out of sadness, but of pure desperation. He placed his head on the table and Ginny sighed.

“One of these days, your ignorance had to come back and bite you” she rubbed his back and he only groaned.

So what was he supposed to do now? Draco was probably out right now, meeting Nicolai’s mother and they were probably happy together, enjoying each other’s company. And he was here… realizing that he was in love with the stupid white haired Slytherin?!

No, he couldn’t do anything. He had to let these two make their decision. They were perfect together and just because he had suddenly caught feelings for the blond man, shouldn’t change how he dealt with his client.


	16. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays

For the first time in forever, Draco was whistling again, when he crossed the road to once again another unknown location. Harry was leading him to all kinds of different places with this adventure. He was on his way to the office of this Gryffindor and the address led him to a little outskirt of Muggle London into Creature London. Out here, you could meet literally anything.

Draco walked around the corner and already saw the light blue building where Harry’s matchmaker bureau was located. In fact, it was written with rather big letters there, which made sense as he was not specifically matching wizards and witches only.

As he walked through the door, and heard the buzz that let him inside, he was curious to see how it looked. He entered and found a long, though wide hallway which led to what looked like the kitchen. There were three or four rooms going away to the side and the walls were filled with pictures of happy couples. On the left side of the door was a table with a red haired woman sitting there.

“Hi, I’m here for a meeting with Po… Harry. Potter” Draco told her. This couldn’t have come out more embarrassing, however, the woman at the desk smiled.

“You must be Draco Malfoy?” She chuckled at Draco’s wide eyes and introduced herself as well. “I am Maria Santos. Do come in, however, Harry isn’t here today. Your meeting has been transferred to Kevin Entwhistle.”

That was strange. Harry had never said that the last meeting was going to be with another person and if he was honest, he would have liked it much more to talk to Harry again. However, there really wasn’t a choice, if he had the meeting today and the Gryffindor was out of the office today. It was just… strange. There was no other way of saying it.

Before he could thing more of it, Maria got up and motioned him to follow her. As he did, he curiously looked into the rooms they passed. The one on the right was filled with cabinets and folders and a lot of paper. The room on the left was apparently a meeting room with a comfortable looking couch, a TV and a few other things one would find in their living room. Including a bookshelf. Sadly, Draco didn’t have time to inspect the books as Maria knocked on the door furhter towards the kitchen and opened it.

As soon as Draco saw the man sitting at the desk, he remembered who it was. “Oh, hi.” He would have said his name as well, however, he was suddenly extremely unsure whether or not to call him Kevin or Entwhistle.

The man looked at him and chuckled. “Hi Draco. How are you doing? Come on in.”

First names it was then. “I’m a little confused that my last meeting isn’t going to be with Harry.” He walked into the room, while Maria returned to her desk.

Kevin shrugged his shoulders and chuckled. “He’s doing a lot of work for the company. Sometimes, he just needs a day off. It’s nothing new, so don’t worry.” He pulled a paper out of a folder. “Let’s talk about your experiences. You had two dates until now?”

“Yes.” It felt weird. It just felt weird. Why couldn’t he just talk to Harry? He was so much more professional. And it felt as if he really did care about him.

“Good.” Kevin nodded and checked the paper. “Well, we usually don’t like to have such short relationships and send you off. I’m sure there’s a reason for it?” He looked up and Draco pressed his lips together. He was not going to tell him that. Yet, he needed to answer.

“There is.”

Kevin glanced at him, though seemingly decided not to make him answer in whole sentences, which Draco was happy about. The Ravenclaw placed the papers on the desk and once again smiled at him. “Is there anything you’d like to change or maybe something you’re not happy with?”

Well, yes. The fact that he couldn’t talk to Harry. Then again, why was that such a huge problem? He had gone almost ten years without talking to this Gryffindor. The last time he talked to him was when he thanked him for getting him out of Azkaban. That was around Christmas and he had then gone off to France and decided to travel around Europe and forget about what happened to him.

So why was he so reluctant to open up to someone else? If anything, he should be happy not to talk to Harry again, right?

“No, there’s nothing I would change. Thank you very much for your help.” He returned the smile and then frowned. “Actually, maybe you guys should change the flyer; you sound like a scam on it.”

Kevin laughed and shook his head. “I know. That’s the one thing we’re not getting to. There’s so much going on every day that between meetings and sometimes even wedding preparations, we can’t better our marketing.”

Draco chuckled and nodded. He suddenly heard the door of the office open without a doorbell and while Kevin wrote a few things down, he heard Maria talking outside.

“I didn’t think you’d come today.”

“I’m just here for a few parchments.” Draco’s heart sped up when he realized that the voice belonged to Harry. He did sound a little tired and overworked.

Maria spoke up again: “Kevin is still in a meeting. Do you want me to give him anything?”

Some paper rustled and then it was Harry’s turn again: “This is for Alice. It’s two profiles; I trust he can find the one that works better.”

“Is there something you want to tell me? Usually, you don’t let him do so many profiles.”

Harry chuckled. “Nothing, really. But I need a little help with all the work. And I do trust my partner has studied the craft and knows what he’s doing.”

Draco frowned; he did sense something going on with Harry that he hadn’t realized the last few days that he had spent with him. Well whatever it was, he couldn’t continue listening, as Kevin placed the paper in front of him.

“Your signature and then we’re done and we hope you live happily ever after.”

Snorting, Draco signed the parchment and got up. “Sadly, I don’t believe in fairy tales.”

Kevin shrugged his shoulders, stood up as well and motioned to the door. He walked in front and turned around. “Well, we do hope you’re going to believe in that with us.”

As they walked into the hallway, Draco saw Harry smiling at Maria and turning towards them. He seemed to freeze for about a second, before he nodded at them and silently walked passed them.

Draco frowned. The Gryffindor clearly had red eyes and he didn’t look good at all. Something was happening to him. What could it be?

“Is he okay?” Draco asked and turned to Maria, where they stopped.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Malfoy.” Maria smiled and nodded. “The Christmas times are always stressful and sometimes we just need a little break.”

That couldn’t have been the case, right? Draco shrugged his shoulders and bid goodbye, closing the door behind him, still trying to find a way for Harry to talk to him about what was bothering him.


	17. Entre le bœuf et l'âne gris

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can’t believe this song apparently doesn’t exist in English? I couldn’t find the exact translation of it. Well, it means: “There between the ox and the grey donkey” and is a sort of sleeping Christmas song (it’s so beautiful!) I love Christmas music xD

Harry groaned when he heard his phone vibrate and pulled the pillow over his head and the blanket up over the rest of his body. Nobody would be able to find him like that, right?! Even though it was probably far past noon. Another vibration sound, made a sob escape and Harry rolled his eyes. Angry at himself for being so desperate and annoying, and sad that apparently the whole world was against him, he grabbed his phone and saw two messages from Ginny.

> Hello Harry
> 
> How are you doing? Listen, Ron and Hermione really want to talk to you and I decided to tag along to help you out. We’re here and we just want to talk. Please talk to us.
> 
> Love, your teacup

The second message was slightly more aggressive.

> TEAPOT, you need to answer your door. If you’re not opening it in the next five minutes, Ron will turn it into powder and come and get you. You know he can legally do it! And I’m sure Hermione would sign the legal papers that it was necessary. So open the door and let us talk to you. Please, Harry. I know it might be hurtful, but what you’re doing isn’t healthy. Get out and open the door.

Harry moaned in annoyance and threw the phone into the corner, where it vibrated again. Someone must have sent another text message. He wasn’t going to look at it.

Seeing Draco yesterday had had some extremely negative effects on his mental health. He just couldn’t forget these eyes on him, even though he had carefully chosen not to look at him. Well, he had also thought that he could have either be there before the meeting or after, so he hadn’t needed to see him. The smell of his aftershave, even just the sound of his voice was enough to make him tremble and then these eyes which were so intensive and careful. He never thought this was what he was looking for.

He got up and walked through his apartment and opened the door just in time to see Ron holding his wand towards it. “Hey guys. Come in, please. Make yourself at home.”

“Harry! What is going on?” Hermione asked and walked passed him to sit down at the kitchen table. Ron and Ginny followed and Harry closed the door again.

Shrugging his shoulders, he sat down across from Hermione. “Nothing bad.”

Ron shook his head. “You look terrible, so there must be something bad going on.” Hermione nodded, while Ginny wisely chose not to act and say anything.

Harry ran his fingers through his hair and looked at Ginny, who only shrugged her shoulders. He was sure that she wanted him to tell them about what was going on. So he sighed and leaned back.

“I… might have fallen for a client of mine. And it’s bothering me immensely.”

“Wait, so you don't have a boyfriend?!” Ron asked and frowned.

Hermione widened her eyes and chuckled. “Harry, that is nothing bad! Why are you behaving as if the world is being destroyed?!”

She was just about to continue talking, when Harry said the words he was dreading all these days. “It’s Draco Malfoy.”

The dead silence that followed was extremely heavy and Harry could see the thoughts racing in both of his best friend’s minds. He wet his lips and looked down at his hands. It was important for him that his friends knew what he went through. Then again, Draco had been one of the worst people they had known and he remembered how they had already questioned his sanity, when he had talked at his hearing almost ten years ago. And now he was telling them that he was falling for him?! That could only end badly.

Hermione moved to the edge of the chair and placed a hand on his arm. “Harry, is that why you’re acting so unnatural today? You do know that we don’t care you’re in love.”

“Um” Ron frowned at his wife and shook his head. “Everyone would be fine, really” he looked between Harry and Hermione. “But Malfoy? I mean, I don’t care that you’re into men, but…”

Ginny slapped the handle of her wand over her brother’s head and shook her head. “Why is Malfoy different from just ‘men’?” she asked and crossed her arms.

“Because we know Malfoy! He has been nothing but a stupid boy and he bullied us!” He threw his hands into the air. “How does nobody here remember that?!”

“I do” Hermione raised her eyebrows. “I also remember you bullying me in first year.”

Ron widened his eyes. “That… I…” he shook his head. “It’s not the same.”

Harry followed the discussion, slightly confused. So, Hermione seemed to be okay with the fact that he liked Draco? That was extremely weird. He cleared his throat. “It also doesn’t matter, because I’ve actually found him a husband, so there’s that.”

“Shit” Hermione squeezed his arm and smiled softly. “Don’t you worry, Harry. Things will turn out fine. I’m sure of it.”

“Yeah, mate” Ron nodded, even though he didn’t seem to know what he should do with his expression. Harry was happy that they still somehow were there for him.

They stayed over for another hour, before they finally decided to head home and bake some more Christmas cookies. Ginny pressed a kiss on his forehead, when they bid goodbye.

“Don’t give up, Harry! I’m sure magic is working how it’s supposed to.”

Chuckling softly, Harry pulled her into a hug. “You’re the best little sister I could imagine, teacup.”

Ginny winked and waved as she headed out the door.

*

Another knock on his door made Harry sigh, though he actually felt able to fight the world, so he opened it to find Nicolai standing there. Well okay... He had been able to fight the world, but not him. Great.

“Um, hi Nick. What are you doing here?”

He looked just like he always was; ironed suit, pulled back hair and almost without any imperfections. His ex smirked and shrugged his shoulders. “I just wanted to talk to you, can I come in?”

Harry wordlessly stepped back and motioned to the kitchen table. Since the kitchen was next to the entrance it wasn’t really an inconvenience to invite people to sit down there. And he could always make tea without having to tell the guests to wait for a few minutes until he was back with the beverage. 

“So, I’m officially telling you, that I can’t continue with this whole thing. You know, my mother actually died and she seemed happy for me. So, that was all I needed.”

Stopping in the middle of his action, Harry turned to his ex and placed the kettle down again. “What are you saying?”

Nicolai chuckled and shrugged his shoulders. “It’s been a nice experience.”

There was a thick silence in the air, as Harry narrowed his eyes. “WHAT ARE YOU TELLING ME?!”

Harry stared at Nicolai as if he had been turned into a ghost. He was aware of the fact that he had been shouting and that it was late in the afternoon, probably already early night and his Muggle neighbors were probably annoyed by him. However… that wasn’t important right now.

“Why did you let me make a match if you’re telling me right now that…” Harry threw his hands in the air and slammed them on his kitchen table.

Nicolai leaned back and looked by far too smug. This only reminded Harry why he had broken up with him. He was an amazing Auror, though an abysmal human being. Apparently, he hadn’t changed, even though he had really wanted him to.

Smirking, his ex shrugged his shoulders. “To be honest” he started and crossed his legs. “I never told you I’m looking for a boy-toy. I just wanted to have someone to give my mother a peaceful passing. Which did happen. Now, I’m going back to my old life.”

“You’re a god-awful human being.” Harry glared at him. “Did you not learn that if you’re stabbing people in the back, the tables could turn as well?”

“Hasn’t so far” Nicolai shrugged his shoulders again. “So why would that happen right now?” He leaned forward and smiled at him. “I should thank you for doing this thing for me. And” he motioned towards him. “Keep up the good work.”

When he got up, Harry leaned at the table, raging. “Fuck you Nicolai. You should…”

“Watch it Harry” his ex turned to him, looking way too relaxed and actually even slightly dangerous. “I’m an Auror. An official Ministry worker. You wouldn’t want to start a war again, would you?” He raised his eyebrows slightly and huffed in a superior way, which was just too much for Harry.

In the first time in a long time, he actually took out his wand and pointed it at his ex. “Get out.”


	18. Maria walks amid the thorns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again (in my opinion), you’re missing out with this song. The original (German) is so beautiful that I highly recommend, you check it out. Original title: “Maria durch ein Dornwald ging” Also one of my favorite songs :)

“Hello, Draco, how are you doing?” Pansy opened the door when Draco walked up to their home. She was a little confused, since Draco had only once walked to her home and that was when they had been under construction and Jason was trying to have their fire place connected to the Ministry’s network.

He only shook his head and passed by her. “Terrible.”

Pansy frowned and closed the door. It was instantly warmer and Draco pulled his winter jacket off, rubbing his forehead. “I was just informed by this fucking idiot Nicolai that he wasn’t going to continue a relationship with me. He apparently just wanted to have someone to introduce him to his dying mother.” Draco groaned and sat down on the stairs. “And I trusted him. I fucking believed that all my sorrow was going to be over.”

“He did not!” His best friend’s expression darkened quite a lot and she crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m going to kill him.”

“I don’t know what to do now, Pansy. My father wants me to have someone _tomorrow_! Otherwise, he’s going to marry me off to a woman!” Draco placed his head in his hands and sighed.

Since Pansy was suspiciously quiet, he finally looked at her again and saw her smirking. “What?”

“Draco, come with me, I want to show you something” she said and beckoned him to follow her into her office. Inside this rather big room was in the middle a beautiful old desk, clearly organized. However, on top were a lot of pictured in two neat piles.

“What’s this?” Draco frowned and turned to his best friend.

Pansy chuckled. “These are all the pictures of the Christmas banquet you took. Those are of everybody” Pansy pointed to the left pile, while Draco frowned at her.

“And the others?” He looked at the ones who were turned around. While he could see the ones Pansy was pointing at very easily. Why was she so secretive?

“They’re about Harry.” She smirked, while Draco widened his eyes. That couldn’t be true, right? He had only taken four or five of him… “You took some amazingly beautiful pictures, but look at that!” She presented him both piles and Draco bit his lower lip. They were exactly the same size. He made exactly as many pictures of Harry alone than he did with everybody.

Pansy placed them on the desk again and took out one picture of Harry. “I like this one a lot.” She showed it to him and Draco saw Harry laughing at a joke. It was an almost side view and you could see his laughter lines and he seemed so relaxed and happy. It truly was a beautiful picture. Alongside with the nice suit he was wearing and the glass of champagne in his hand, he seemed to be truly at home around people.

Draco took the picture from Pansy and shook his head. How had he never realized this earlier? He really seemed to like him.

“However, I like this one much more.” Pansy placed a picture on the desk and Draco turned to it, seeing Harry looking straight at him. He had a one-sided smirk and winked at the camera. His eyes were so full of light and happiness. “You do realize he wasn’t looking at the camera, right?”

“What do you mean?” Draco shook his head.

Pansy chuckled. “He’s looking at you, you idiot! I’m pretty sure he likes you as well.”

Draco shook his head. “But he never…”

Before he could continue, Jason stormed into the room and stared at them in shock. He caught himself quickly again and turned to his wife.

“Pansy, Harry’s in prison.”

Draco and Pansy froze both, unable to come to an explanation. Draco especially didn’t know what to think of that. It couldn’t be true, right? All of that was a joke. Maybe even a test to see if he actually felt something for him…?

“What are you talking about?” Draco asked confused and still slightly believing that it was a test.

Jason coughed and shook his head. It looked as if he had just come through the fire place and was still slightly confused where up and down was. “I just received news that Harry was arrested for attacking an Auror.”

Pansy shook her head. “That can’t be true, right? He knows not to do something so stupid.”

“I wouldn’t put it past him. Depending on what they were talking about…” Jason shrugged his shoulders.

“True, he does have a temper. But can we go and try to get him out there?” Draco asked and turned to both Jason and Pansy.

Jason nodded and motioned them both to walk to the fire place. “Sure. The Minister probably won't listen to me, but maybe he'll listen to my lovely wife. And if that doesn’t work, we can always get Ron and Hermione Weasley.”

When they made it to the Ministry and the official bureau of the Minister, he wasn’t there. The lady at the front desk just informed them that they could wait; however, she wasn’t sure how long it was going to take.

So instead, Jason took all of them down into the prison holding cells in the cellar of the Ministry. They walked through the long dark halls and finally, Pansy stopped both men and motioned around the corner, where they could see Ginny Weasley standing outside of a prison cell.

That could only mean one thing: Harry was inside. Draco’s suspicion was confirmed, when Weaslette shook her head, sighed and started talking.

“You are being incredibly ridiculous, Harry.”

Harry answered and sounded incredibly defeated. “I know.”

It seemed as if Weaslette hadn’t heard what he said, since she just continued talking. “You can’t just attack him. I know you don’t like Aurors and whatnot, but _attacking_ them? Harry, what were you thinking?”

Harry groaned and placed his head in his hands. “I wasn’t thinking, Ginny.”

The redheaded girl leaned at the wall and frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

“He said all these bad things and then told me that I helped him in scamming Draco, which I… I totally didn’t want to do. How could I have been so blind and not see all these red flags?!” He leaned back and closed his eyes. “And then he told me that I wouldn’t be so stupid to start another war against the Ministry.”

“Harry” Weaslette sighed. “You do see how he wanted to get exactly that reaction out of you, right? And you taking out your wand and attacking him actually worked in his favor. Stupid people just exist.”

“I know.”

The redhead shook her head. “So, now what? What’s happening to Malfoy? You can’t just keep him hanging. You need to tell him that you like him!”

“Ginny, I am literally in prison right now. Ron and ‘Mione are trying to get me off, but depending on how Nicolai plays it, I might actually end up in Azkaban.”

“Yeah right.” Weaslette scoffed and shook her head. “If they throw their Savior in Azkaban, there will be riots happening all over the UK. And I will be leading them.”

Harry chuckled, though it sounded defeated. “I guess I’m a failure.”

The youngest Weasley rolled her eyes, while Draco motioned his friends to walk out and give them a little space. His friends were already trying to get him out, maybe he could help them. And Jason did have a lot of higher-ups Ministry connections. Pansy had always been amazing at getting and maintaining important relationships. They should definitely be able to get him out. It was the least thing he could do, seeing as Harry had attacked an Auror – most likely Nicolai – for him.


	19. All I want for Christmas is you

Harry had just about had enough time to go home, quickly jump under the shower to clean himself from the prison cell dirt and put on something nice for the Christmas Masquerade Ball. He was already late when he apparated away from his home and landed on the front lawn of the Malfoy Mansion. Hurrying towards the entrance, he put on his mask, which was green and white checkered with a few smaller details. Then, just to complete the charm of being unknown, he placed a spell on himself which would hide his identity from people, as long as he was going to wear the mask.

Satisfied with the finished look, he entered the Manor, and found loud ball music blaring through the house. The nearest room to the entrance hall was open and it had clearly been magically enlarged. There were people dancing, eating and chatting away. White glowing icicles hung from the ceiling and a majestic Christmas tree with all kinds of different decoration stood in the corner far back. It all looked very impressive.

Harry hadn’t seen Narcissa anywhere, though she was probably just talking to some other guests. And well, since he had put a spell on himself, he was actually for the first time in a long time just a person. He should have been happy about it.

Walking to the ball room, he watched the pairs dancing and his gaze went around the nicely decorated room, until his attention was drawn to someone special. It wasn’t hard for Harry to find Draco. He was wearing a smooth black suit with a yellow, red patterned mask. His blond hair, however, immediately told Harry who he was looking at. He did look a little uncomfortable, though Harry could see that he was trying to hide from someone else. Nevertheless, he still looked absolutely stunning.

Harry saw Draco widen his eyes and look for an escape route, so his attention drew him to another Malfoy member – Lucius to be exact – who seemed to be cutting the room. Harry looked back at his former classmate and found Draco trying and failing to find a way to get away from his fast approaching father.

Harry quickly found a gap to cross the room and arrived in front of Draco only a second before his father did. “A dance?” he asked, holding out his hand.

Relief washed over Draco’s face, as he quickly accepted the dance and walked onto the dance floor and away from his father. “Thank you” he said as he bowed, before the music picked up again.

“What for?” Harry mimicked the bow and held out his hand again.

“For saving me again, Harry.”

Harry stopped for a small moment, before he got himself together again and joined the dance move again. “How on Earth can you see through my disguise spell? I once even got away from Hermione that way.”

Draco chuckled and shook his head. “The standard charms are pretty useful. Though, not when you’re trying to make yourself unknown to a person with a close relationship.”

In fear of saying something wrong, Harry just stayed silent and they danced their way to the end. When they bowed, Harry quickly saw Lucius walking closer and Draco seemed to have noticed him as well.

“Come with me.” He took his hand and pulled him through the room, away from his father and they walked up the stairs to a quieter place in the house.

A long hallway with a lot of pictures hanging on the walls made Harry frown and he turned to Draco who had taken off his mask. Harry followed suit, still unsure of what was happening.

“I honestly don’t understand what’s going on” Harry said and chuckled slightly embarrassed.

Draco smirked and shrugged his shoulders, leaning on the wall. “That’s not surprising. I don’t think you ever understood what was going on.”

“Hey!” Harry rolled his eyes and shook his head, even though he was grinning as well. “That’s not nice of you to say. And _sometimes_ I did understand what was going on.”

He heard footsteps coming from downstairs up the stairs and Draco grabbed his arm and pulled him into the first room on the left. While Draco quietly closed the door, Harry turned around and looked at the new environment.

The walls were painted in Slytherin green and the décor was clearly supposed to show pureblood culture. There was an organized desk next to the nicely made bed and a piano in the corner opposite of the desk and next to the door. It looked like Draco’s bedroom.

Harry sat down on the piano stool. He opened the fallboard and placed his fingers on the keys. Before he played anything, he looked back at Draco and took his hands away.

Draco was frowning and walked closer, sitting down next to him. Harry tried to secretively inhale as much as he could from this sensory-sapping aftershave. It seemed as if Draco had either not realized it or simply chose to ignore it, as he just started talking: “Are you seriously telling me that you can play the piano?”

“Not very well” Harry chuckled and shrugged his shoulders. He was so close to him, that he could feel the warmth of the Slytherin even through the elegant jacket. “But I’ve always had this dream to impress a partner with how perfect I can play it.” He shook his head. “I think I’m a hundred years old, until I can get a relationship if I’m working with this idea.”

“It is much more fun to play together though” Draco said and grinned. “And how many lessons have you had?”

Harry sighed and shook his head. “Not many. With everything that’s going on, I just don’t have time to practice and I think I’ve moved my last lesson around for three weeks.”

“Potter, come on!” Draco shook his head and seemed actually mad at him. “You should know that you can’t just do something without practice. I mean, how often did you practice the…” he seemed to think for a good explanation and shrugged his shoulders then. “The Patronus?”

“Well, I am Harry Potter, so I didn’t have to pra…” he couldn’t continue, as Draco smacked a rolled up parchment over his head and he snorted. Holding up his hands, he looked over to Draco who had a hard time trying to hide his grin. “Fine. I had to practice, but not as much as others had. The Patronus was never a huge problem for me.”

Draco smirked. “Well fine. Patronus and pianos aren’t really the same. Still, you need to practice the piano if you want to impress someone.” He seemingly wanted to add something else, though stayed quiet in the last second.

Harry looked back at the keys and sighed then. He had to change the topic and talk about what had been making him crazy all of yesterday. “I’m sorry by the way. I thought I knew what you needed and it turned out that me trying to help you made your situation worse.”

When he finally looked up, he saw Draco shaking his head. “Don’t apologize. You _did_ help; I at least know that I’m not looking for someone who’s the exact same thing I am.”

“Because you’re actually a little rebel?”

Draco glared at him, though it didn’t have any impact, as Harry snorted. Shaking his head, Draco shoved him to the side and rolled his eyes.

“I’m no rebel, Potter.”

“But that’s what you’re looking for, Malfoy. Someone who would help you get out of all this pureblood pressure.”

Sighing, Draco nodded. “I guess. So you haven’t lost your sight for what people need then.”

Harry turned back to the piano and nodded as well. “It just came back a little late. I wish I could have helped you earlier.”

Draco only hummed. Harry frowned and turned to the Slytherin. The blond wizard was looking at the desk and finally turned to him as well with a small smile on his lips.

“You helped me, don’t worry.” He smiled broader. “And I did pay it back by talking to the Ministry and letting you off with a warning.”

Harry sat straight and widened his eyes. “How did you find out? I only told Ginny, Ron and Hermione…”

Draco chuckled and shrugged his shoulders. “Jason got the news and we went to talk to the Minister. Actually” he hesitated and looked at the piano keys. “He wasn’t in his office, so went down to the holding cells to maybe find you and figure out what happened.”

Harry frowned. It seemed as if Draco was trying to tell him something with this, but he couldn’t find the solution to this riddle. What had happened down there? Hermione and Ron had come to talk to him and tell him how stupid he was and then left to find the Minister, who for some weird reason (probably since Nicolai planned it) not in the Ministry that day. Ginny had stayed back and asked him whether or not he had done it for…

Widening his eyes, Harry turned away. _Shit._ Was Draco there, when Ginny asked whether or not he had done it for Draco?

“Harry” Draco said it so soft and warmly, it made Harry shiver and he wet his lips. This… All of this was a dream, right? The Ministry was doing something to him? He was still in prison and they did something to his psyche? “Harry, look at me, please.”  
Slightly trembling, he turned to look at Draco and found the truest, softest eyes he had ever seen. “I…” Harry couldn’t find any words.

Draco’s lips quirked up for a second and his hand reached out to Harry’s cheek. The first touch made Harry shiver and he made a small sound. Draco carefully pushed a strain of Harry’s unruly hair out of his face.

“Harry, I didn’t want to realize it before, but…” Draco smiled. He followed his hand, as it trailed back over Harry’s neck und up to his cheek again. Harry felt his breath shorten and he looked the Slytherin so deeply in his eyes that he shivered. “I think I was falling for you the second I saw you in that bakery. And I didn’t want to believe that it was you. But it is.”

“But I have no idea of pureblood culture and all that stuff.” Harry tried to find another reason for why this couldn’t be true, though failed spectacularly. In all honesty, he was glad he failed. He couldn’t get enough of this soft and loving Draco right in front of him.

Draco grinned and shrugged his shoulders. “I mean, you said it a few moments ago, right? I’m a rebel.”

Harry couldn’t stand firm and chuckled. His hand came up to hold Draco’s which was still on his cheek. “I was falling for you a long time ago, I believe. Draco, I would love to start this relationship with you.”

Leaning forward, Draco hummed and smiled. Harry couldn’t resist, falling into that kiss faster than he would have ever thought. He felt like he was flying, while Draco pulled him even closer. This was where he wanted to be. Forever.


	20. You feel like Christmas to me

Draco breathed in a fairly sweet scent and though he didn’t seem to find where it was coming from, it gave him the feeling of safety. He hummed, turned around in the bed and felt a warm body next to his. Now, this scent he knew better than he would have ever thought.

He smiled happily and reached his arms out to pull Harry into a hug. The Gryffindor mumbled something incoherent, and placed his arms around him as well, pulling him even closer. Draco inhaled and nuzzled into Harry’s neck. He felt the Gryffindor move slightly and a soft kiss was placed on top of his head.

Opening his eyes, he looked up, though found the black haired man almost half asleep with closed eyes. That made Draco shiver and he smiled happily, placing his head back on the pillow. He yawned and tried to get even closer to Harry’s warm body, where he closed his eyes again.

They sadly didn’t have any more time, as Draco’s phone suddenly vibrated and his alarm clock started ringing. Draco turned around and tried to get up and turn off the ringing, when Harry just kept him in his arms and stopped the phone with wandless magic.

“Show off, Harry.” Draco smirked and looked down at the Savior who still had his eyes closed. There was however a small grin on his face which proved that he wasn’t actually asleep. “You need to let me get up and go to work.”

“It’s Sunday. Who works on Sundays?” Harry asked, still with closed eyes.

Draco leaned down and placed a kiss on his lips. “I do. I’m taking pictures of Pauline’s Christmas Cookie collection. So, you need to let me go.”

“No.”

Chuckling, Draco entangled himself from the Gryffindor and got a pout and some almost desperate puppy eyes which nearly made him weak enough to head back to bed. However, he was strong and went to take a shower. From the bedroom, he heard Harry groaning and then what seemed, him getting up as well.

He didn’t join him in the shower, so he finished quickly and dressed in his formal wear from the party again. Luckily, he had a few outfits in his office, so that wasn’t going to be a problem. He just wanted to hide from his father. At least until he knew what he and Harry were going to be.

Getting out of the bathroom, he found his way to the kitchen. The apartment looked actually rather grown up – he would have thought for some reason that Harry would have all walls painted in Gryffindor colors. Instead, they were in a nicely white. One wall had bricks and another was showing wood. There were a few pictures on the shelves of Harry and his friends. A big TV stood in the living room and an extremely comfortable looking couch. It seemed as if Harry made his apartment as an escape from the people outside.

Well the biggest thing that was maybe a little childlike was the huge showcase on the wall with a very old looking broom inside it. Draco stopped and turned back to it, before crossing the room to check what the plaque on the glass said. He couldn’t believe that Harry had this broom in his possession. However, when he stood in front of it, there was no more doubt: It was the Moontrimmer. The last one in existence and amazingly well kept. Draco somehow didn’t doubt that Harry knew exactly how to take care if this rare possession. He looked at it one more time, before nodding impressed and turned around to look for the Gryffindor.

Draco found Harry working in the kitchen. He was whistling some Christmas tunes while he cooked. Before Draco could say anything, Harry’s phone vibrated and he placed the food onto the counter. He grabbed his phone, read through it and snorted, before sending something back.

A second later, as if he had realized that he was being watched, he looked up and smiled. “Hey, I made breakfast, if you’re interested.”

“Depends on what you’ve made” Draco grinned and turned to the rather rich looking breakfast. There was so much on the table that it looked as if there was no free space. “And it looks like you’ve made everything.”

“I couldn’t decide what you would like more” Harry laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

“I could eat” Draco grinned.” But I might have to steal one of your jumpers, because I feel too formal in this.” Gesturing to his party outfit, he found Harry smirking and shrugging his shoulders.

He motioned to his bedroom and chuckled. “You may take whatever you like.”

Draco grinned as well and headed off to get something. Just like the apartment, Harry’s collection of jumpers seemed to represent a warm, happy feeling, where he could hide away. Draco quickly chose a warm, dark blue jumper and walked back to the kitchen. When he was back, Harry had made coffee and placed it on the table as well.

“Why did you smile at your phone?” Draco asked curiously as he sat down opposite of the Gryffindor.

Harry chuckled and pulled out his phone. “Ginny’s writing me constantly.” He showed his screen and Draco could see what had made him snort.

> Hi Teapot
> 
> Ron wants to know when you’re paying him back the money for getting you out of prison. Alternatively, he also suggested accepting your Merlin First Class, should you wish to part ways. Teapot, if you give him the medal, I WANT the Moontrimmer!
> 
> Love, Teacup

Underneath was Harry’s response.

> Dear Teacup
> 
> Tell Ron that I will not part ways with my medal and you will NOT get the Moontrimmer. Stop asking for it. If you want I can invite you to a restaurant of your choice.
> 
> See you later, Teapot

Shaking his head, Draco grabbed some coffee and a toast. “So, why do you call Weaslette _teacup_?”

Harry chuckled and shrugged his shoulders. “She still has a collection of nice teacups and one time when we went shopping I told her to ‘come along teacup’, since she was looking at more of them and she decided to call me ‘teapot’ then. That’s how it happened.”

“How long ago did that happen?” Draco shook his head. If he would have called any of his friends ‘teacup’ that would have probably resulted in a not so friendly duel.

“About two years after Hogwarts, I think. So yeah, we’ve been calling ourselves that for about seven years.”

Draco nodded impressed. He sat down and curiously looked at Harry who grabbed the coffee and sat down as well. 

The Gryffindor smirked and gestured at the rich buffet on the table. “Anything you’d like the most?”

“All of it. It all looks so good.”

Harry chuckled and bowed mockingly before starting to give him some bacon. Draco enjoyed the breakfast extremely; not only because of the amazing food, but also since it gave him time to watch the Gryffindor. His movements were so elegant and he seemed to know exactly what he wanted – though that wasn’t really surprising at the breakfast table. Still, it was a pretty good start for a day.

Sighing, Draco grabbed his coffee and took a sip. “Now, I just need to make it through today without running into my father and I could count this day as one of my favorites.”

Smirking, Harry looked up and shrugged his shoulders. “If you want, I could come with you. Be your backup, in case you need it.”

“I don’t need any backup.” Draco shook his head.

“Do you still want me to come with you?” Harry asked and raised his eyebrows.

“No, it’s fine” Draco chuckled. Tonight, he needed to gather enough courage to ask Harry about their relationship status. He had said yesterday that he wanted to try a relationship with him, but did that mean it started now? He got back out of his head and smiled at his apparent protector. “Father won’t put one foot into my shop and since it’s Sunday, and people normally don’t work Sundays” he looked at Harry as if he wanted to point out the exact thing he had told him about an hour ago. The Gryffindor only rolled his eyes; however, there was a smirk on his lips. Draco counted that as win and continued: “…my mother probably won’t try and find me there.”

Harry shrugged his shoulders. “Yes, well. Do come back here as fast as possible. I’d like to celebrate the Advent Sunday with you.”


	21. The First Noel

Harry sat at his kitchen table, thoughtfully sipping the Christmas tea he had found in one of the side alleys when he had gone and looked for Draco yesterday, since he had absolutely lost time (and Harry missed him terribly). The Minister had told him that they were going to ‘forget’ what Harry had done a few days ago. Mostly, because Ginny had apparently tipped off one of the writers in The Prophet and there was a one page summary and explanation of what had happened with apparent witness accounts. Nicolai had gotten off so easy in it.

In all honesty, Harry was just sitting with there with the phone on the table, waiting until Ginny or any of his friends had read this article, since there was surely a reaction happening. And well, Kevin had told him to stay home today, since he had everything under control.

Before he could do anything, he felt the wards around his apartment alert to someone’s presence, though it wasn’t a full on alarm. Harry had strengthened them since he didn’t want to open the door again, when his stupid ex was in front of it. If he could make him attack the Auror, he needed to hold himself back. Well, since it wasn’t an extreme alarm, that could only mean it was a friend.

Harry got up and opened the door just in time to see Draco with a raised hand looking at him with wide eyes.

“Um… hi.”

Laughing, Harry shook his head. “Come on in. I hope you’re doing fine.”

“Amazing.” Draco rolled his eyes, when he passed him. “Actually, I was able to avoid Father for another day, so it is amazing.”

“Draco!” Harry laughed and shook his head. “You are aware that one day you’ll have to talk to him, right?”

The Slytherin shrugged his shoulders. “You said it correctly: _one day_. That doesn’t mean today. It’s just…”

Harry cleared his throat and raised his eyebrows when he looked at the blond man. “Draco, I know you don’t want to talk to your parents, but you _have_ to do it!”

Draco sighed and nodded. “How about this: I’ll go meet them tomorrow and we’ll stop talking about it now?”

“Fine” Harry nodded. “Do you want me to come with you?” Was it just Harry or did Draco nod rather sheepishly? Well, whatever it was, Harry smiled and pulled Draco in for a kiss. “I’d love to accompany you.”

They walked into the kitchen, once Harry had taken Draco’s jacket, and he made his visitor a cup of Christmas tea as well.

“I was in your office, today. Why weren’t you there?” Draco asked and accepted the tea while Harry sat down as well.

Shrugging his shoulders, Harry smirked and took a sip of his now almost cold tea. He quickly re-heated it and turned to Draco. “Kevin gave me a day off. No, actually he ordered me to take a day off.”

Draco laughed and shook his head. “This man is in over his head, Harry! I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d have more work to do tomorrow than if you’d been there today.”

“So does that mean you want me to go there now?” Harry asked and smirked into his tea, while Draco glared at him.

“No. Just an observation.”

Harry smirked. They sat in silence for a while, just enjoying their tea and the quiet company. In the background, there was soft Christmas music playing and Harry quickly finished the dishes by putting everything in the dishwasher and starting it with magic. Today was just going to be a lazy day. And honestly, with Draco here, Harry just wanted to do… well, nothing.

When he turned back to Draco, he saw him smirking and he took another sip of the aromatic tea. “So, Harry.” He tilted his head a little. “What were you thinking about before I came here?”

Sighing, Harry nodded and placed the cup on the table. “Well. I have to admit that my thoughts don’t really match my reputation of the good Savior.”

“Do tell” Draco leaned forward. “I would be very excited to be titled the man that destroyed the Golden Boy.” The smirk on his face let Harry know that he was in fact just joking.

Chuckling, Harry finally said out loud what had bothered him the whole day. “I was thinking about a way to get Nicolai.”

“Haven’t we all.” Draco laughed and crossed his legs.

“I’m serious, Draco.” Harry shook his head. “He’s done so much bad shit. I want to get him for _something_. Even if it’s something stupid.”

“I mean…” Draco shrugged his shoulders. “He told me he was benched from Auror work when we first met. I’m not sure if that does anything but…”

Harry looked up and frowned. “He’s benched?”

Draco narrowed his eyes, as if he didn’t understand what was going on, which Harry would have probably done as well had he not worked for the Auror corp. “Yeah… Why? Is that something?”

“Usually an Auror gets benched for doing something illegal. And if they’re doing it again, they’re fired. I can’t believe he told you that!”

Draco raised his eyebrows. “So, we need to find the thing that was illegal?”

Harry nodded. “I really want him to pay for what he did.”

“Wow, wow, Potter. Standing room only on that bus.” Draco smirked and shrugged his shoulders. “So, how do we get that illegal thing?”

“Well, I do know quite a lot of people who do kind of owe me a few small favors.” Harry grinned and grabbed his phone.

Just then, it vibrated and when Harry turned it over, there was finally a text from someone. Though it was from Kevin.

> Hey Harry, could you maybe come in tomorrow a little earlier. I absolutely underestimated the amount of work before Christmas I am so sorry!

Harry snorted and showed the phone to Draco who looked at him questioningly.

“Told you” the Slytherin grinned.


	22. Adeste Fideles

Draco opened his shop and sighed at the mess he had left behind yesterday. With this chaos he was in no condition to open the ship for people to come by. At least not now. So, he spent the first three hours of the morning cleaning up and hiding the mess in shop. Now, the mess was in his office and not in the room, where everyone would come in to look at pictures and ask for things.

He changed the sign on the shop window and headed back to his office deciding to clean up everything there as well. He had stupidly also placed Pauline’s pictures somewhere in there and he was supposed to go over and show them to her later today. Why did he have such a mess?!

Just when he sat down on the chair and looked at the mess, wondering where he should start, the door opened and the trumpets made it clear that someone entered. There was a surprised shout and then a swear.

“Oh no” Draco said quietly and got up. He knew this voice… And when he walked around the office door, there stood his father. Actually _inside_ his shop. He would have never believed to see him there. Then again, he wasn’t ready for this discussion.

Stepping out of his private office, his father seemed to have noticed him quickly. He looked very mad, as if he hadn’t gotten the Christmas present he had wanted to get. Nevertheless, Draco was supposed to get married to a woman, if he hadn’t presented his parents a man up until a few days ago. And… he had never told them about Harry.

“Draco, I do not appreciate your action since the Christmas Masquerade Ball. Your mother and I would like to talk to you about your marriage” his father started and narrowed his eyes. Great start to that conversation.

Draco shook his head. For the first time, he felt a strong voice in his head that told him to stand up to his father. “No.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “You do realize that I left with someone else, right? That I do have a boyfriend?”

Behind his father, the door was opened only a little so it didn’t start the trumpets and Draco found Harry slipping. He immediately felt so much lighter and powerful – somehow.

“The deal wasn’t to have a boyfriend, Draco!” his father said and walked forward.

“Actually, Father” Draco didn’t back down. He felt Harry’s eyes on him and that seemed to be the only thing he needed to stand his ground. “You never said what relationship I needed to be in with said person. You simply said I needed to show the man I wanted to have my future with and I did that.”

“You walked off with some random person. That is not how it works. So I have a few fire calls and luckily there’s still one family that…”

Draco was just about to say something, when Harry walked forwards and spoke up as well. “Mr. Malfoy! How nice of you to check up on your son.”

Extremely surprised, Draco’s father jerked up and turned around to the door, where Harry was leaning against the wall again with two coffees in his hands and a rather nice and innocent smile as if he hadn’t just witnessed the whole cold-heartedness that was Lucius Malfoy.

The third person in this room seemed to confuse the Malfoy patriarch quite a lot. “I’m not… Mr. Potter, what are you doing here?”

“Oh, Draco left in such a hurry this morning that he couldn’t drink his coffee, so I’m here with one now and also my assistance in looking for the lost pictures.” Harry smirked and looked at Draco motioning to his coffee.

“He… what?” His father shook his head, as if he hadn’t thought that Harry was talking about something that actually happened.

Harry just continued as if he didn’t see the genuine confusion on the eldest Malfoy in the room. “Also, I decided to check up on my boyfriend who just ran off without saying goodbye.”

That was the first time Harry said he was his boyfriend. It gave Draco butterflies in his stomach and a generally ease that he could conquer everything that was coming his way. Including his father.

“I needed to work, Harry.”

“At least say goodbye!” Harry smirked and walked past the old Malfoy holding out his coffee. When he was sure Draco’s father couldn’t see his face, he winked at Draco. He placed the coffee down and pulled him in his arms. “We’ll fight this together, Draco” he whispered which made him smile.

“Thank you.” Draco whispered back.

Meanwhile, it seemed as if the white haired wizard seemed to have gotten his confusion out of the way. He stepped forward and shook his head. “I’m sorry, but can someone tell me what’s going on?!”

Draco was just about to say something, when Harry laughed and nodded. “Oh yes, of course, Mr. Malfoy.” Harry smiled at the elder man so innocently. “In fact, your son and I are in a relationship so you can’t really marry him off. He did after all complete the condition you’ve set.”

“I… I do not approve of this!”

“Yes, I know.” Draco rolled his eyes. “You’d rather have me marry a pureblood witch, so I can have a few little Malfoy heirs and our name would continue. But I think we should stop this line of fuck ups. I choose not to follow your order and live my life like I want it. And my choice is Harry Potter. So you can either deal with that it get the hell out of my life. I don’t need someone who doesn’t accept me the way I am.”

His father narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “I have never had someone talk to me like that and…”

Harry stepped forward and raised his eyebrows. “I believe he gave you two options, Mr. Malfoy.”

“This is not the last time we’ve talked about this! You’re still my son and I will do anything in my power so you won’t throw your life away.” He swore a few more things as he opened the door and walked out.

Harry followed after him and held the door open a little bit, calling after him: “Thank you, Mr. Malfoy! Come by soon!” He closed the door and snorted. Turning around to Draco, he smiled at him. “You good?”

“Sure. Thanks. I couldn’t have done it without you!”

Harry laughed and shook his head. “Hell no, Draco. Your monologue didn’t need me. You were awesome!”

“Thank you. And thanks for the coffee.” Draco chuckled, while Harry shrugged his shoulders and walked closer. “You honestly don’t need to stay. Kevin needs you in the office, right?”

“I know. I just wanted to make your father unwelcome.” Harry chuckled and kissed Draco softly. “Tonight at mine? I’ll make you some comfort food?”

Draco nodded and smiled tenderly. “You’re all the comfort I need.”

Harry smiled softly. “You’re a little flirt there, Draco.”

“I honestly couldn’t resist. And yes, I’ll be there. For the food and for you.”

“I can’t wait.” He kissed Draco and pulled him into a hug. “I love you.” And with that he just left, as if he was afraid what Draco had to say about that.

Draco chuckled and looked at his coffee with a huge grin. “I love you too, you pillock.”


	23. Like it’s Christmas

Harry closed the door to the filing room and hurried down the hallway to his own office. He had successfully finished the filing process for this year. At least with everything that had stayed on his desk. It looked so uncharacteristically clean and tidy. Well, it was nice to look at as long as it going to last. Tomorrow was going to be the last day of work and then the holidays were finally here.

Maria had already gone home and Kevin seemed to be working late today as well. Harry knocked on his door. “Hey Kev, how are you doing?”

Looking up from the surprisingly small stack of files, Kevin sighed. “Almost good. I just want these papers done before I go home. But I already made so many mistakes.” He yawned and rubbed over his eyes.

Harry chuckled. “Mate, go home! I’ll be gone soon as well. There’s no point in doing them now and then having to correct them tomorrow, because you made too many mistakes. Just enjoy the evening.”

“I can’t believe another year’s almost over.” Kevin got up and grabbed a few things, before turning to him. “And what are you doing here now?”

“Oh, cleaning up. The kitchen needs to be cleaned and I want to sort through the client room; the cleaning staff will be here tomorrow and I want to make it as easy for them as possible.”

Kevin nodded and tried unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn. “Sure. Do you need any help?”

Harry laughed. “Not from you, old friend. Go home and sleep. We’ll start tomorrow at ten, okay? It’s just filing things and finishing paper work.”

His friend just nodded and dragged his feet out of his office. “I’ll take the bus today. I’m too tired and probably end up spliced into thousand of peaces if I tried to apparate home. Good night, Harry.”

“Sleep tight.”

Harry chuckled and walked into his office; he grabbed the glasses and cups and levitated them behind him, looking all over the office to get all the loose dishes. In the office kitchen, he placed them into the dish washer and started it. He then went through the fridge, throwing out old stuff and cleaned up the kitchen as much as he could.

Before he could start with the client room, his phone vibrated and he took it out to see a text from Ginny.

> Hey teapot!
> 
> How are you doing? You haven’t answered my last text and if you’re not going to answer this one, I’ll be coming by and see for myself how you are.  
>  Anyway, Mum is preparing a Christmas dinner. Since we haven’t spoken in the last few days, I couldn’t tell her what’s going on with you. I think Ron might have told Mum about you having feelings for Draco. And she invited Draco as well.  
>  The party is like last year on the 25th. Charlie can’t come earlier and George said, he usually gets the most sales tomorrow. Please come by and tell Draco that he just needs to live with Ron’s careful ignorance. That is if you and him are together. I do kind of think that’s going on, since you haven’t answered anything. I will be on my best behavior.
> 
> Nevertheless: ANSWER ME!
> 
> Love, teacup

Harry snorted and shook his head. Ginny somehow had the character traits of being very lovely and angry at the same time. This had always amused him and he had laughed over it quite a lot of times.

> Hello lovely teacup.
> 
> I will be there, don’t worry. And yes, there might be something going on between me and him. I won’t pressure Draco to come along, but maybe he will. Thanks anyway. And if you want you can come by tomorrow night, I already have a tree, if you want to put decorations up? Luna’s welcome as well.  
>  Have a nice evening!
> 
> Your teapot

With the text sent, Harry turned his attention to the client room, quickly cleaning up everything, placing books back into the book shelve and correcting all the little details, which he had started to love. Finally, he placed a spell onto it that fluffed the cushions and cleaned up everything he hadn’t noticed. Which wasn’t much.

He was then surprised by a door opening and walked out of the room to find Draco standing there. “Hey.” Harry smiled and walked towards the blond man.

“Hey? That’s all?” Draco placed his hands on his hips and raised his eyebrows questioningly.

“Um.” Harry chuckled. “Hello love?” He tried to hide the smirk that was forming on his lips. Draco seemed so annoyed for no apparent reason and it made Harry almost laugh out loud.

Draco shook his head. “No! Why aren’t you home? I had quite a hard day and I was actually looking forward to snuggle with someone and then you’re not there. It’s almost eleven!”

Harry laughed and walked to the man who had now crossed his arms over his chest. Draco saw him walking closer and backed up. “No! Do not even think of hugging me or something. I’m mad at you!”

“But I had to work!” Harry shook his head, though he did stop and raised his eyebrows. He then opened his arms and smiled at his boyfriend. “Come here then, hun.”

“No.” Draco narrowed his eyes, as if he was a child not wanting to back down from what he thought was right. Even though both of them knew exactly that he would have liked a hug.

Tilting his head lightly, Harry grew a loop-sided smirk and jumped forward. He grabbed Draco into a hug and pulled him closer. Draco hummed and threw his arms around Harry’s neck. “You’re an idiot.”

“Thank you, Draco.” Harry laughed. “And for your information, I was just about to leave.”

Draco huffed and placed a kiss on his cheek. They separated again and when Harry went to his office to grab the winter coat, he received another text as he was back in the hallway.

> Don’t tell anyone you’ve gotten this from me. If anyone wanted to tell the Aurors what’s going on, this might be useful. He made the same mistakes twice in a row. He was in St. Mungo’s for drinking on the job three times and the files attached are just what I’ve found on the surface. Let me know what you want to do with the files. Maybe I can help you further?
> 
> **attachment: FL_AW11_Loughty_disciplinary_action.pdf**
> 
> **attachment: FL_AW10_Loughty_disciplinary_action.pdf**

Harry looked up and smirked. “Draco, you might have to hold off on cuddling, there are a few things that might be of interest.”

Draco sighed dramatically. “That depends on if it’s worth it or not, Potter!”

“Oh, it absolutely is worth the wait, _Malfoy_!” Harry grinned.


	24. Keep you warm

Draco shut up from Harry’s bed when he heard claws at the window. How had he slept so long?! When he got up, he saw a note on the nightstand, but decided to make the owl at the window stop the nerve-wracking sound. So, he opened the window and found his mother’s owl.

“Oh no.” The owl flew away without even wanting a treat and left Draco with an uneasy feeling in the stomach.

Looking over to the note on the nightstand, Draco decided to start with the letter from his mother first and then get the one from his boyfriend.

Breaking in deeply, he sat down and opened the letter with shaking hands. Why was he so nervous and scared? His mother had always supported his decisions… right?

> Dear Draco
> 
> I cannot lie and say I wasn’t confused by your actions in the past few days. Even if you are currently not interested in behaving like a pureblood, you should have introduced me to your partner at the Christmas party. 
> 
> Your father tells me that you have Harry in your shop and that you called him your boyfriend? I have never heard this from Harry himself, which confused me further.  
>  I have taken the liberty to invite Harry to the Manor this afternoon. Feel free to join us at two o’clock.
> 
> Your mother

How eloquently she had ignored the fact that his father had been mad at him and told him never to talk to him again.

Draco sighed. There was no way around this. Harry would probably not refuse to meet her and therefore would be found in the Manor this afternoon. Rolling his eyes, Draco threw the letter onto the floor. There was no way around it: He needed to go to the Manor as well.

Looking over to the note from Harry, he smiled softly and grabbed it.

> Hey darling
> 
> I’m in the office, finishing paperwork. I shouldn’t be gone longer than two or three hours. I didn’t wake you up, because you looked so peacefully asleep.
> 
> In the kitchen is coffee and breakfast. Feel free to look through the apartment – you won’t find my present for you if that’s what you’re looking for.
> 
> Also, do you want to go to the new Christmas market around the corner tonight? Even if there are a lot of people (and it’s Muggle), I just love the lights and I think you would like them too.
> 
> See you soon,
> 
> Harry

Now that was a note if anything. Draco smiled and grabbed his phone. He needed to call him, just to find out what Harry wanted to do this afternoon.

“Potter.”

Draco smirked. “Hey _Potter_.”

“Draco, hey! Sorry, I didn’t even look at the phone. How are you doing?”

“Good, thanks for the note. And for not waking me up.”

Harry chuckled. “I honestly couldn’t bring myself to pull you from your dreams. You looked to peaceful.”

A ping in his phone made Draco frown and he looked at the screen, where Harry had sent a picture of himself sleeping. “You took a picture?!”

“As I’ve said: I couldn’t stop watching. And I think I wouldn’t have gone to work today, so I took a picture. Don’t worry, nobody else will get it. I will protect it for all eternity.”

Draco smirked. “You’re a little love struck, aren’t you Potter?”

Harry laughed. “So much!” There was a knock on Harry’s door and Draco heard him talking to Kevin, before he was back. “Kevin says ‘hi’ and he put your folder into the archive, he hopes that’s correct. I hope so too, actually.”

Laughing, Draco shook his head. “Yes, that’s okay, don’t worry. I think you’re just fine.”

“How dare you! I am perfect!”

“Keep telling yourself that” Draco snorted and sighed then. He needed to get to the thing he had wanted to talk with Harry. “Did you get an invitation from my mother?”

“I did. I was going to come home for lunch and ask what you wanted to do. In all honesty, I would have gone and told them to keep out of your love life since they don’t own you. But you have to tell me what you want me to do.”

Draco felt such a warm feeling in his stomach. Harry really did seem to love him. And he felt as if he could do anything with him by his side.

“Let’s do it and tell them not to come between us.” Draco nodded.

*

They sat in the living room, everyone looking just as uncomfortable as the other. Finally, Draco’s father seemed to be willing to break the silence. “Well then, Mr. Potter. I do not appreciate how you’ve talked to me a few days ago.”

Looking up from the drink, Harry smirked. “Well, Mr. Malfoy.” He was clearly mocking the Malfoy patriarch, even though neither of Draco’s parents were realizing it. “I wasn’t aware of the fact that I had to stay polite while you could be aggressive. Is that pureblood behavior?” He asked so innocently, yet Draco could see his eyes lighting up. He was glad that he hadn’t needed to be alone here.

Draco’s mother apparently decided to back up her husband. “Harry, dear, we are just wondering if maybe Draco asked you to do him a favor. It is time to get married after all.”

“Mother!” Draco sighed and shook his head. Harry smiled at him, before he turned back to his mother.

He smiled sweetly. “Narcissa. This relationship is not fake, I can promise you this. None of us owe the other a favor and I didn’t get together with Draco to prove a point of any kind. And Mr. Malfoy, I know it’s hard to believe, but this is actually love.”

“Right” Draco’s father sounded sarcastic and rolled his eyes. “If it is actually love, it’s time to get married. Today.”

He hadn’t heard that correclty… right? “What?” Draco widened his eyes. He saw Harry frown and narrow his eyes. However, even his mother seemed to be okay with what her husband had said.

“It’s important to get married early, and you’ve already wasted too much time in your life.”

Harry held his hands up and shook his head. “I’m sorry, but no.”

“So you’re not interested in him, are you!?” Draco’s father laughed and got up.

However, at the same time, Harry got up as well. “Do not _ever_ question my interest and love in your son. But my relationship with him is none of your concern. When and if we get married is just our decision, nobody else’s.” He stepped forward and Draco saw his expressions going blank. With all of a sudden, he realized how much Harry could have been a pureblood wizard, if he chose to. It seemed, as if he had practice with doing this. Though, Draco had to be honest: He didn’t like this. He liked his emotional Gryffindor much more. Meanwhile, Harry continued: “It’s not like I’m invading your relationship with your wife now, am I?”

Draco’s father got white as a ghost and narrowed his eyes, while Harry kept his emotionless mask up, as if he were a pure pureblood. “So, please don’t try to be a part of my relationship with Draco. I promise to tell you as soon as – and if – we decide to get married. Thank you.”

With that, he bowed shortly, held out his hand to Draco and after he accepted, they walked out of Malfoy Manor. The further they got away from the house, the more Draco started grinning and after a few hundred feet, he started to laugh loudly and stopped.

Harry sighed and shook his head. “I am so sorry.” He had seemingly gotten his emotions back and looked rather guilty.

Draco shook his head. “Absolutely not. You have nothing to feel sorry about. That was epic! Thank you and I love you, Harry.”

“I… I love you too, Draco” Harry smiled and pulled him closer.

Draco placed a kiss on his cheek. “How about that Christmas market now? I think we could both need a little bit of Christmas happiness.”


	25. Angels we have heard on high

Harry shivered and pulled his jacked closer while he looked to his left, where Draco was walking. His eyes were so attentive to every small detail, which were probably all the lights in the small Muggle village a few miles away from the Weasley home. He should have definitely apparated closer, but he just wanted to see Draco’s expressions. Yesterday in the Christmas market had been the same awe-struck expressions at all the lights.

As if Draco realized Harry had been staring at him, he turned to face him and smiled weakly. “Do you think they’re going to like that I turned out to be your boyfriend?”

“Who?” Harry asked just when he realized that Draco was talking about the Weasleys. “Well, Ginny knows already. She did come by with Luna for decorating the Christmas tree.” Harry chuckled when he remembered how careful all three acted at first and how they ended with throwing metaphorical punches, trying to outdo the other – especially Ginny and Draco. He had just sat in his kitchen, listening to the two smartest people in his life (next to Hermione of course), who both meant a lot to him, with a smirk on his face.

Draco shook his head, bringing Harry back to what was going on right now. “I’m sure everyone there would have liked someone else to be with you?”

“Someone like Nicolai?” Harry smirked.

“Ew, no. How did you even get together?” Draco asked clearly curious. “I mean, Ginny told me he was your ex, but I can’t really imagine you and him…”

Harry snorted. Yes, it did sound a little outrageous at the moment. Especially, since he had gotten his ex fired with the files he had gotten from a little help of Peter. “Well, we were Auror partners when I was finally allowed to go out into the field. And then, we just kind of went from there. But it wasn’t real – I think. We just used each other.”

Draco frowned. “Hmm. I do hope that we are real?”

Harry stopped and smiled at Draco. “We are. At least in my mind. Why?” he brushed a snowflake out of Draco’s face. “Did you think of running already?”

Draco chuckled and shook his head. “No. But I was just wondering.”

“Despite the fact that I always seemed to know who matched best with what person, I never seemed to be able to figure out who would be my partner. But with you by my side I finally know.” 

Smirking, Draco rolled his eyes, though Harry knew exactly that he had made the Slytherin a little weak. “You need to dial this love-struck confessions back a little, Harry. I’d rather hear them, when we’re alone, preferably sitting on a sofa, looking at a Christmas tree.”

Harry laughed and nodded. “Of course, my handsome darling, I’ll stop now. We’re already a little late.” He held out his hand for Draco to grab it and they apparated closer to the Weasley home.

When they landed in the soft snow, Harry turned to Draco and smiled softly. “Are you okay?”

“I think so. I’ll tell you in a few hours.”

Pulling Draco closer, Harry chuckled. “We can always go home, I want you to know that I’m not mad if you want to leave, okay?”

Draco grinned and nodded. “Of course, my literal savior. Let’s go inside.” He pointed at a window. “I think Ginny’s already spotted us.”

“I am absolutely certain she has” Harry laughed and led Draco to the door, where he knocked. Not a second later, it was opened by Ginny who grinned at them.

“Hello! My favorite people on the earth have arrived!” she beamed at them while Harry chuckled and Draco shook his head.

Harry hugged her. “I find that hard to believe, teacup.”

Ginny shrugged her shoulders. “Your mistake.”

Draco smirked and was pulled into a hug by Ginny, who seemed to want to prove a point to the Slytherin. Grinning, she waved the two inside, where Molly just hurried into the kitchen. Most people were already there and Harry was quickly surrounded by a lot of smaller Weasley children. In all honesty, he had stopped counting them since their numbers seemed to grow like rabbit’s. However, he did know all their names.

After he had greeted them and presented Draco as his boyfriend, he made his way to the kitchen. Knocking on the door to get his self-proclaimed mother’s attention, Molly turned around and smiled broadly.

“Hi there, deary! Come in, come in!”

Harry chuckled and walked inside, Draco in tow. “Hello, Molly. How are you?”

She nodded quickly and cast a charm on the spoon to stir whatever food she had on the stove. She then cleaned her hands and smiled at Harry. “A lot of work, but now you’re here.”

“Sure” Harry laughed and grinned at his Slytherin. “Draco is here as well.” He placed his arm around him and smiled, before he turned back to Molly. “So what do you want me to do?”

Molly nodded and gave a warm smile to Draco, before she turned back to Harry. “Grab the plates and set the table, please deary.”

“Of course.” Harry grabbed the plates and smiled at Draco, before he left the room. He did hope that Molly wasn’t going too hard on him.

Ginny must have seen him setting the table and came into the enlarged dining room as well. “You left Draco with Mum?” she asked and quickly went around the other side of the table, placing plates down.

Harry nodded. “She probably wanted to talk to him? But I’ll make it quick.”

“Yeah, he might run away afterwards.”

While Harry threw a glare at her, Draco walked into the room with the cutlery, looking a little surprised. Harry jumped up and took a few knives which were about to fall down out of his hands.

“What happened?” he asked curiously.

Draco looked at him, before he started laughing. “She told me, if I was going to break your heart, I should think about moving somewhere, where none of her family can ever find me. And then she proceeded to tell me where on the world everyone was living.” He frowned at Harry. “I honestly don’t understand what I’m supposed to do with this information.”

Ginny snorted and shook her head. “Store it somewhere safe, in case you need it.” She grinned. “But she tells that to everyone. She was surprisingly quick this time. With ‘Mione, she was talking for about an hour. Luna was thirty minutes.”

“Maybe she’s already gotten the scary mother-in-law-effect down to a t, so now she doesn’t need to overdo it?” Draco asked and shook his head. He then grinned at Harry. “And by the way, I told her I wasn’t going to do something like that.”

Harry rolled his eyes, but laughed nevertheless. “Thanks for this explanation. Can we now enjoy Christmas?”

Ginny smirked and nodded, before she turned to Draco. “We usually play Quidditch before dinner. Do you think you can convince Harry to play with us?”

“Oh come on! You’re not a nice ‘sister’!” Harry couldn’t resist a grin and shook his head.

Draco glanced over to him interested. “You don’t like to play?”

“Well, the adults do need help in getting ready! I’d like to help there.”

Sadly, just then, Molly walked in and had heard their discussion. She cleared her throat and shook her head. “Harry dear, you can absolutely go and play Quidditch with everyone else if you want to” she said and walked back into the kitchen.

Ginny tried unsuccessfully to suppress a grin and even Draco seemed to be amused by all of this. He leaned over and pressed a kiss on his cheek. “So, I need to convince you to play Quidditch with everyone? How about: if you come outside, I’ll give you the smaller present now?”

“You have two?” Ginny widened her eyes and looked at Draco as if he had just shown her another way of cheating.

Draco shrugged his shoulders and grinned lopsided. Harry sighed, but couldn’t stop a small smirk escaping his annoyed expression. “Fine.”

Ginny squealed and hurried out of the room, quite clearly telling everyone to get ready to play a game of Quidditch.

“You know you just made a mistake, right?” Harry asked and grinned.

However, Draco just shrugged his shoulders. He pulled a small piece of paper out of his pocket, enlarged it and gave it to Harry. Curiously, Harry opened the bow that seemed to keep everything together and found his own flyer. Remade.

He widened his eyes. “Oh my god, Draco!” There were so many pictures of all his clients in love. Weddings, parties, dates, Draco had made so many photographs. They were so beautiful.

“Open it!” Draco said and smiled broadly. 

Harry watched Draco for a second, before he opened the paper. Instead of his rather stupid sentence, there was now actually information about his company inside.

> Over forty couples have found their perfect matches through us. We are happy to provide a full experience with meetings, dates and eventually even wedding preparations. All of our clients will eventually find their partner, if they are open-minded and ready for the experience. Hear from our past clients.

Draco had gone and asked so many people about their experience that there were about ten quotes from different clients about their feeling. It warmed Harry’s heart to read from all of them.

The sentence which Draco thought was so stupid had been changed to something else, and Harry actually liked it very much.

> If life is a game, then true love is the trophy. Come and get yours today. With us, you will be winning in any category.

“I love it, Draco!”

Harry looked up and found his boyfriend grinning. “By the way, Kevin helped me and he told me you weren’t billing for the first hour.” Draco smirked and Harry blushed.

“I… I am sorry about that” he chuckled. “I just wanted to keep talking to you and that felt like the only way to keep you around.”

Draco grinned and shrugged his shoulders. “I mean, it did work. So I’m not mad about that. Merry Christmas, Harry.”

“Merry Christmas, Draco. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas everyone! :D


End file.
